We are all born free — that was the message given to primary school students as they were presented with illustrated books depicting the rights of every human on earth.

Amnesty International Bermuda is donating a hardback children's version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations 60 years ago, to every primary school classroom in Bermuda.

Amnesty executive director Lucy Attride-Stirling invited youngsters from public and private schools to a presentation ceremony yesterday, on Universal Children's Day.

She told the pupils gathered at Bermuda Chamber of Commerce: "Today we celebrate children all around the world. Today symbolically we wanted to make sure that all the schools were represented in here. You were celebrated today in a very special way."

Ms Attride-Stirling said Amnesty's initial plan was to donate a book to every primary school and ask the Ministry of Education to buy more, to ensure every classroom contained one.

When the charity didn't hear back from the Ministry, the board of directors decided it would buy 450 copies of We Are All Born Free, which was produced by Amnesty in the UK. Ms Attride-Stirling said: "We do a lot of work outside Bermuda. This is the one way in which we can make a local impact in human rights education."

Former Amnesty chairman Nelleke Hollis said: "I think it's important that people know about human rights and a lot of language in terms of human rights and everything is very adult. I think it's important to have something age appropriate for children and this is."