19th World Children’s Haiku Contest 2025-2026 – Winners

We are delighted to announce the winners of the JAL Foundation 19th World Children's Haiku Contest 2025-2026. 

This year, entrants were asked to compose their own haiku on the theme of Sound and submit it with accompanying artwork for a chance to win. We received many amazing entries from children across the UK again this year, as well as some international entries. Judges were faced with the difficult task of choosing the winners from hundreds of wonderful entries and were impressed with the diversity of responses to this year's theme.

The judge from The Japan Society commented: "I had so much fun judging! The depth of feeling conveyed in so few words as well as the quality of the accompanying artworks was mindblowing. We sometimes forget or oversimplify the richness of children's experiences and emotions and art like this shines a beautiful light into their thoughts."

After several hours deliberating, they finally decided on the top 3 Grand Prize winners, as well as a further 2 Grand Prize winners and 20 JAL prize winners. 

The Japan Society would like to thank everyone for their support of this year’s contest. The results are also displayed on the JAL Foundation website. See below for all the winners for this year's contest.

A further 22 wonderful entries were selected as prize winners in the contest and will receive a prize from the JAL Foundation. All the winning entries are displayed on our Contest Results page!

>>See all winning entries