June 24, 10

NEWS / Tennis ace bound for Belarus to visit UN projects helping youth after Chernobyl

24 June 2010 – The tennis star and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador Maria Sharapova will head from the Wimbledon tournament, where she is currently competing, to Belarus to visit an area in the southeast affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Ms. Sharapova will travel to the Gomel region, where her charitable foundation has helped fund several UNDP projects focused on providing opportunities for youth and improving their communities.

The three-time Grand Slam champion from Russia is slated to visit a local arts centre where children work on projects to beautify the town and learn about the environment, tour a health facility that takes a therapeutic approach to treating emotional and mental stress, and meet students who have won university scholarships from her foundation.

Ms. Sharapova, 23, whose family fled Gomel a year before she was born because of radiation concerns in the wake of the nuclear accident, said she wanted to contribute to the recovery of a region where she had such a personal connection.

“Giving young people the tools they need to reach for their dreams is a good way to overcome the Chernobyl legacy,” she said. “Helping people help themselves is at the heart of UNDP’s mission, and I am eager to see the results first-hand.”

The Sharapova Foundation, in partnership with UNDP, supports seven youth-oriented projects and a scholarship programme in areas of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine that were affected by the Chernobyl accident.

“Maria Sharapova’s work in this region will convey a message of optimism to young people, in a once-blighted region, where a return to normal life is now a realistic project,” said UNDP Administrator Helen Clark.

Ms. Sharapova, who won the Wimbledon women’s singles crown as a teenager in 2004, today won her second-round match at the tournament, which concludes at the end of next week.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35125&Cr=undp&Cr1=