Get in touch with the WCP coordinator in your country, or contact the WCP office direct to talk about your plans. We can support you with tips and materials, help you contact local media and maybe also help you work with other schools in your area. Email: info@worldschildrensprize.org.

When you're planning and holding the press conference, you can use this rough guide (some of the links will not be activated until April):

1. Decide on a time and place
Try and choose the most important building in your area for your press conference! You could ask if you can use rooms in the council building or town hall, for example. It's important to check the time with WCP, because lots of children hold their press conferences simultaneously, and the information needs to be released at the same time!
  When you're thinking about how long it should be, you need to remember that journalists often have tight deadlines for getting their news in a newspaper or on the TV or radio. That's why a press conference rarely lasts for more than half an hour, and is never longer than an hour. Get inspired by our draft World's Children's Press Conference script when you're planning the conference.
> Download draft script

2. Invite local media and politicians
Send invitation to all your local media including newspapers (printed and online), TV and radio. You can use email if you have it, but it's always good to call people as well. Some children even go and pay a visit to the biggest newspaper offices if they're close enough to their school!
   You might need to do a bit of nagging. Sadly not all journalists feel that children's rights issues are important, so you will need to explain it to them.
   Remind all the people you've invited, even if they've accepted the invite. Particularly the day before, and maybe even on the morning of the press conference too.
> > Download a template for invitations to your World's Children's Press Conference.

3. Prepare carefully
If you're going to be the main speaker at the press conference, you'll need to be well-prepared and practice what you're going to say. Work on the draft script you get from WCP and add your own thoughts and information about local issues concerning children. It's often a good idea to run through the whole press conference at least once as a rehearsal. Your classmates can pretend to be journalists asking questions.

4. Set up the venue
During a press conference, the main speakers often sit or stand on a stage. Journalists and photographers sit on chairs in rows in front of the speakers. If you have access to one, you can use a video projector and good audio via separate speakers when you show films and images. Feel free to decorate the venue with WCP posters and/or your own posters and pictures you've drawn while studying the WCP program.
   Invite your school friends and perhaps also pupils from neighbouring schools to join the audience. But remember to leave plenty of room for the media at the front! Photographers and camera operators usually move around the room while the press conference is taking place, so they can get the best pictures.

5. Hold your press conference
You could do it like this: Start by giving a brief presentation about yourselves and your school. Then talk about the World's Children's Prize and the fact that other children all around the world are holding a World Children's Press Conference on the same day. It's a good idea to show images and/or short video clips in between your verbal presentations. You can also have live music and/or other performances.
   When the main presentation is over, those journalists who want to can ask questions. To finish, hand out the press release you've been given by WCP. (All schools that have registered with WCP to hold a World's Children's Press Conference will be given access to classified information the evening before or the morning of the conference).
   Sometimes a few journalists will stay behind to conduct individual interviews with the children who held the press conference.

6. Follow up and share
Follow up and collect press cuttings. Please send them to us at WCP. On this page you can tell us what you did at your press conference, so we can share it with other children around the world!