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…
