The Universal Postage Union is running a letter-writing competition for young people, and the submission deadline is coming up on 5th May 2026! Given that postcrossers often love writing letters as well, we thought you’d want to hear about it here, too.
The event this year is a partnership between the UPU, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It’s a long-running competition designed to get young letter-writers 9–15 years old writing letters, in the hopes of fostering communication skills and creating international friendships. It sounds like a lovely way to get young people thinking about the power of writing letters and making connections offline, and we’d love to encourage people to join in.
This year’s theme is a really important one: “Write a letter to a friend about why human connection matters in a digital world.”
That’s a huge part of Postcrossing as well: so much happens online, but we’re still getting physical postcards, writing messages to one another, putting on stamps, and taking them to a postbox. These connections matter, brightening up people’s days, and showing that there’s a whole community of people who care enough to participate in something slow, analogue and uncertain, reaching out to random people we don’t know and leaving our little fingerprints!
If you’re 9–15 years old and you’d like to participate in the competition, or you’re someone who wants to help someone you know to join in, you can check out all the details! Just don’t forget that 5th May deadline…
21 comments so far
This is a very good initiative.
Not only fostering bonds, but cognitive skills also evolve.
Expression, memory, creativity and physical cures is also possible with continuous writing habits!!
Let's begin .
What if I'm an adult but identify as a child?
What a lovely contest! I think they should do the same for adults. Doomscrolling is a problem that affected most of us.
What a wonderful idea.
To bad that I'm not a child! I don't have a cellphone, so...I feel so connected.
Already passed the word to kids in family and they were enthousiastic about it.
The question is: are these letters going to be physically written and sent? In this case, there is a huge issue with timeing, considering mail delivery dead line.
I 'identify' myself as a child.
I already passed the word to my nephews hope they want to join.
But not sure how they will wrie a letter since they only like ipads and roblox!
Is it open for all nationalities?
I must let my niece know and make sure she participates!
it is really a nice activity!but i alread not young~hope have activity 17 age can join!
I’ve spent some time looking but can’t find any information about how to participate in the United States. Does anyone know if the USPS facilities participation?
Super cool! I would love to do it. Anyone know how to join?
This is a good idea. Kids are so "digitalized" these days that it's a shame. It would be nice to see good old-fashioned penpal relationships grow.
Does anyone know who the United States organizer is? Would love to do this with my students...
Does anyone know the address we are supposed to send the letters to? My little cousin wants to participate but there is no address information on the promotional material. Thank you!
@ FridaZ
There is a link on the last line of the blog post, there you will find a participants guide.
I found a list of participating postal services here.
https://www.upu.int/en/Universal-Postal-Union/About-UPU/Member-Countries
in 21 apr it's still related to participate?
Thank you for sharing this wonderful event as I was not familiar with the UPU. When I was a teacher I always encouraged my students to write letters, it is a dying art... I will forward this along to my daughter who is a librarian working in the children's section. Perhaps I should write my next Postcrossing card on this theme.
Bravo Shanaqui
Keep up the terrific work!
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