[Serena Williams] urges next generation to beat poverty

from Sioux City Journal

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Tennis star Serena Williams challenged the next generation of leaders Monday to take immediate action against poverty and disease and said she will travel to Africa to encourage people to overcome hardships they face.

Williams joined Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and others at a U.N. press conference to promote the first U.N. Global Youth Leadership Summit.

The meeting began Sunday and brings together two representatives from each of the 192 member U.N. states -- a young man and a woman between the ages of 18 and 30 -- to discuss helping the organization achieve its Millennium Development Goals.

The goals including cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring that all people have access to clean water and sanitation, and universal primary education -- all by 2015.

Williams, 25, said that, as a member of the next generation of leaders, it was important for her to speak in support of the summit.

"Now is the time to realize that we're here, this is our generation, and we can make a statement and we can fight different diseases and we can fight poverty and we beat this," she said.

Williams said she is will travel to Ghana and Senegal later this week to promote that message and impart "a little knowledge and a little self-esteem -- it can go miles and miles and miles."