Tennis Star Maria Sharapova to Visit Belarus’ Chernobyl-Affected Areas

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), will visit Chernobyl-affected areas in Belarus in late summer or fall, Viktar Radzivinowski, a spokesman for the UN office in Belarus, told on May 20.

Ms. Sharapova is expected to visit the areas for the rehabilitation of which she earlier donated money, Mr. Radzivinowski said.

“I hope that Maria Sharapova’s visit will attract publicity and more donations will be made for the rehabilitation of Chernobyl-hit areas,” he said.

In February 2007, the world's top-ranked tennis player donated $100,000 for eight Chernobyl relief projects in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

The projects, carried out by the UNDP in cooperation with the local authorities and NGOs, focused on better computer access and the reconstruction of sports facilities and hospitals in the three countries’ worst-affected areas.

In September 2007, Ms. Sharapova donated more than $30,000 for projects benefiting the Chernobyl-affected Brahin and Chachersk districts of the Homyel region.

The UN's current projects aimed at Chernobyl-hit areas focus on the screening of newborns and small children, the consulting of pregnant women and purchases of equipment for children’s playgrounds and rehabilitation centers, according to Mr. Radzivinowski.

"My first step is to focus on the Chernobyl-affected region, where my family has roots," Ms. Sharapova earlier said. "Today, it is poverty and lack of opportunities that pose the greatest threat for young people in the Chernobyl region."

Ms. Sharapova's father and pregnant mother fled Homyel, about 80 miles north of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, shortly after the April 1986 accident. She was born in a Siberian city months later.