Serbian tennis sensation Ana Ivanovic named UNICEF National Ambassador

Tennis superstar Ana Ivanovic has officially been named as a National Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for her home country of Serbia, where she will advocate for children’s rights, especially in the realms of education and child protection.

“This is a great honour for me to be invited to be UNICEF Ambassador,” said Ms. Ivanovic, speaking at the Vladimir Rolovic elementary school in the capital Belgrade. “I love children, and I relish this opportunity to help them in some small way.”

Ranked number six in the world, the tennis ace has contributed funds to allow three schools to implement the “School without Violence” programme.

“I’m looking forward to supporting UNICEF’s ‘child-friendly schools’ concept,” she said. “Serbia is already on a good way in this respect thanks to UNICEF’s activities. I will give my contribution and hope that it will add up to the positive changes that are occurring for children in Serbia.”

The schools benefiting from Ms. Ivanovic’s generosity are the Vladimir Rolovic school, the Desanka Maksimovic primary school in Kovin and the Vera Radosavljevic primary school in Negotin.

Welcoming the star athlete to the UNICEF family, the agency’s Acting Representative in Serbia, Maria-Luisa Fornara, said Ms. Ivanovic has “demonstrated power and potential of sports and to further UNICEF’s mission in building a Serbia fit for children.”

Fellow Serbian tennis ace Jelena Jankovic will also officially become a UNICEF National Ambassador when she returns to her country. They will join the ranks of two other UNICEF National Ambassadors in Serbia: Aleksandar Sasa Djordjevic, a national and international-caliber basketball player, who was appointed in 2005, and Emir Kusturica, a world-famous film director named in 2002.

Meanwhile, Martha Schteingart, the renowned Mexican urban thinker and lecturer, has been named as the winner of this year’s UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) Lecture Award.

As one of the most prominent urban researchers in Latin America, Professor Schteingart’s research interests include urban land and housing, urban structure and social movements, urban development and transport, poverty and social policies, governance and local management, and the urban environment.

For over three decades, she has been a professor and researcher at the Center for Demographic and Urban Studies at El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City, and is currently a visiting lecturer at the Urban & Regional Planning Program at the University of Michigan.

The Award, first bestowed last year, is organized by the Global Research Network on Human Settlements to recognize outstanding and sustained contribution to research and thinking in the human settlements field.