Sharapova, James Team Up Against Poverty

from the WTA Tour

NEW YORK, NY, USA - Maria Sharapova, a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, has invited NBA star LeBron James to team up against poverty on a new UNDP advertisement, designed to garner support for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals.

Sharapova's work with the UNDP includes promoting international efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Adopted by 189 countries in 2000, the Goals are clear, time-bound targets for achieving measurable improvements in lives of the world's poorest people. They aim at eradicating poverty, putting children in schools, promoting women's rights, fighting killer disease and providing access to safe drinking water. UNDP coordinates global and national efforts to reach these Goals.

This ad campaign revolves around the concept of Teaming Up Against Poverty to achieve the MDGs. The advertisements feature celebrities from sports, the arts, fashion or business portrayed in teams of two by the world's greatest professional photographers. Fifty celebrities, including UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors and soccer greats Ronaldo and Zidane, have agreed to participate in the initiative to promote the MDGs and are undertaking specific anti-poverty activities.

The advertisements have been produced thanks to photographers, celebrities and advertising agencies who donate time and talent for the fight against poverty. Hundreds of global newspapers and magazines have already published these ads.

World-renowned photographers who have joined the campaign include Dominique Issermann, Peter Lindbergh, Sarah Moon, Satoshi Saikusa, Christian Moser, Ferdinando Scianna, Javier Vallhonrat, the late Jeanloup Sieff and many others, including Sebastiao Salgado. Over 200 media outlets, including from countries such as Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom, have offered full page space to publish the advertisements.

Sharapova and James were photographed by top fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier who has donated his talent for this new photo that will launch a news series of advertisements to promote the MDGs. The London-based agency Leagas Delaney will produce the advertisement.

The Millennium Development Goals are:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development

The UNDP is the UN's global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. They're on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.

Sharapova was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNDP in February. Her work with the UNDP includes rallying support for the global campaign against poverty and promoting international efforts to achieve the Goals. She has made a contribution of USD100,000 to eight youth-oriented projects in rural communities in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine that still suffer the after-effects of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. The donation funded projects to improve computer access, promote ecological awareness, and restore sports facilities and hospitals in the three countries most affected by Chernobyl. These projects complement a broad portfolio of UN work helping Chernobyl-affected communities regain a sense of self-sufficiency, build new livelihoods, and bring a once-blighted region back to life.

Sharapova Named U.N. Goodwill Ambassador

from The Guardian

By MARJORIE OLSTER

Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Top-ranked women's tennis player Maria Sharapova was named a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Program Wednesday and immediately donated $100,000 to aid recovery from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which touched her own family.

The Russian-born Sharapova, 19, told a packed news conference at U.N. headquarters that her work for the poverty-fighting agency will have a special focus on helping the area affected by the world's worst nuclear accident.

``I still have family that's affected,'' said Sharapova. ``This definitely means a lot to me.''

On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the electricity-generating plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded during a pre-dawn test and spewed radioactive clouds over the western Soviet Union and northern Europe. The shattered reactor leaked radioactivity for 10 days and contaminated 77,220 square miles. The Soviet government had to permanently evacuate more than 300,000 people.

Sharapova's father and pregnant mother fled the city of Gomel in Belarus - about 80 miles north of Chernobyl - shortly before she was born in Nyagan, Siberia.

Gomel was one of the areas most affected by radiation and Sharapova's parents were concerned about its effects on their unborn child, she said. Sharapova said she still has family in Gomel, including a grandmother.

Sharapova said her first priority would be to call attention to the lingering effects of Chernobyl.

Her money will go to eight U.N. development projects in rural communities in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine directed at youths suffering from the effects of the nuclear accident. The projects include sports and computer facilities and hospitals.

``One of the greatest things about being a professional athlete and being a tennis player and making money is that I can give back to the world,'' Sharapova said.

Thirty-one people died within the first two months of the Chernobyl disaster from illnesses caused by radioactivity. There is debate over the longer-term toll. The U.N. health agency has estimated that about 9,300 people will die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Some groups, such as Greenpeace, insist the toll could be 10 times higher.

Some 5 million people live in areas where radioactive particles fell in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Sharapova signed a contract with the UNDP which promises to pay her a symbolic salary of $1 per year for her two-year term. She called it ``my proudest contract ever.''

Goodwill ambassadors make field visits to some of the poorest areas of the world to draw attention to their plight and pay all their own costs.

Sharapova said her work with the UNDP will extend to other impoverished areas as well, adding that she had always been fascinated with Africa and told the UNDP she wanted to visit.

Sharapova left Russia in 1995 and moved to the United States. She now lives in Bradenton, Fla. She won the 2004 Wimbledon and 2006 U.S. Open titles and has earned more than $9 million in her six-year career.