The development of youth philately in Slovakia is one of the priorities of Slovenská pošta, a. s. It seeks to stimulate postage stamp collecting in Slovakia. This is reaffirmed by the support of annual activities which are carried out under the Agreement of Cooperation with the Association of Slovak Philatelists. In addition to the activities carried out by Slovenská pošta, a.s. under this contract they have also carried out their own activities mainly concentrating on postage stamp design competitions for children, a good example of this is the annual competition Christmas Mail.
This year’s challenge for children aptly named “Philately” is completely different from previous years. It should attract children from the first grade of primary school to postage stamps collecting through the original fairy tale about the carrier pigeon “Oplaško”. Through its mission focused on delivery of top-secret messages it frees its mother, the world record holding racing pigeon, from captivity. Thus, this irresponsible and untidy ordinary pigeon becomes a famous carrier pigeon that attracts a new generation of candidates to this disappearing craft. This, in a nutshell, is the basic message of the fairy tale from the most important Slovak storyteller of our time, Branislav Jobus, who has also composed a unique song for his group Abusus on this fairy tale character.
Contributions to this publication through illustration also came from a graphic artist from the department of Postal Philatelic Service (POFIS) of Slovenská pošta, a. s. Adrian Ferda, who is also the author of graphic design of the publication. The publication is interactive in nature. It allows children and, of course, adults to enter a competition for valuable prizes through a prepaid postal card included in the book, on which are stated the competition questions linked to the contents of the book. For those who are interested the book can be made more attractive by adding their own personalized postage stamps by using the application: www.mojaznamka.sk.
                                                                                                                                                                                      Martin Vančo