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Briana Hansen (left), 17, and Perri McKinley, 13, take part in a news conference for Prevent Child Abuse Indiana. -- Rob Banayote / Y-Press   Special section • Star Century: 100 years of The Indianapolis Star

Since 1990, a team of young reporters based at The Children's Museum has produced stories and special reports that appear in The Indianapolis Star.

It was begun as Children's Express, a national group with bureaus in several cities. In November 1999, the local bureau became independent and was renamed Y-Press.

Members of the nonprofit youth organization research and write the stories. Reporters are ages 10 to 13; editors are ages 14 to 18. Topics have included gangs, teen pregnancy and stuttering.

Besides producing a story that appears each week in The Star, Y-Press members have worked on many special reports. Typically, once a year, members travel overseas to report on a story, focusing on the views of children and the topic's impact on them.

Those reports have included:

• Traveling to Kuwait the summer after its liberation from Iraq to talk to young people about how the war affected their lives.

• Going to Northern Ireland in 1997 to look at how children are affected by the ongoing unrest and sectarian violence there.

• A trip to Brazil in 2001, during which the reporters looked at the gap between rich and poor, including the treatment of children who live and work on the streets.

The bureau's members have interviewed many newsmakers, including civil rights activist Rosa Parks, former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan and former presidential candidate Bob Dole.

To learn more, visit the Y-Press Web site: www.ypress.org.