UNESCO Honors Students Who Created Postquake Newspaper

UNESCO on Monday honored the children who created a newspaper to encourage evacuees at a shelter in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, after it was hit by last year's earthquake and tsunami. Four of the 12 children who worked on creating the Fight Shimbun newspaper, a colorful handwritten wall newspaper with illustrations, were invited to the headquarters of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris to be honored by Francesco Bandarin, assistant director general for culture.

Bandarin described the children, including 8-year-old Risa Yoshida, as "a light for the future" and praised them for raising the spirits of evacuees struggling in harsh conditions.

"I would like to say thank you to the people who have helped us all this time," said Yoshida, who served as the first editor-in-chief of the newspaper, expressing gratitude on behalf of the people of Tohoku for the support received from around the globe for victims of the disaster.

Original source here.