Ahead of its IfraIndia/Publish Asia event in Bangalore tomorrow, WAN-Ifra has named India its Young Reader ‘country of the year’.

“When it comes to news media initiatives aimed at attracting young readers, India is a country of champions,” says Aralynn McMane.

Entries from Malayala Manorama, The Times of India, The Telegraph, Mathrubhumi, Dainik Bhaskar newspapers, i-next, The Hindu and Ebela prompted the special award, made for only the second time. It was won by Brazil in 2005.
“Indian news publishers continue to make clear their commitment to youth on all possible fronts by being right there every time there is a ‘first’ in a person’s life,” says McMane, who is executive director for youth engagement and news literacy.

The award will be presented at a WAN-Ifra Youth Engagement Summit in Warsaw, Poland, from December 2-4.

• Editorial: Avisa Nordland (Amedia), Norway, for Engagement Guaranteed, which designated 60 young readers as ‘editors’ to develop the newspaper on all platforms and to develop a new pricing structure. (This project will be explained during the International Newsroom Summit in Berlin, October 8-9).

• Enduring Excellence: The New York Times, for its Learning Network (http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/ ) and The Guardian (United Kingdom) for the Guardian Education Centre (http://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre ). This award was supported by the American Press Institute and Schurz Communications.

• Helping with health: A Gazeta, Brazil, for Healthy Life schools project, which got classes to focus on good eating and successfully push schools to change how they fed students.

• Public Service: Nordwest Zeitung, Germany, for Students to the Ballot, which took its student population seriously by holding a mock election, complete with special with ballot boxes and massive coverage about the process and results.

• Learning with the News: The Straits Times, Singapore, for 48 Values from the News programme, which used news in fresh ways in character education.

• SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile): De Stentor, Netherlands, for MijnZ, which used journalism students to create and test a new digital service for local youth.

• Brand: Schwbische Post and Gmnder Tagespost (SDZ-Medien), Germany, for Job coaching in schools”, which held mock job interviews carried out live for secondary student audiences by personnel managers from the company sponsoring the action, then created sponsored follow-up content.

Details of other winners are at http://www.wan-ifra.org/node/82439