Home / Employment / Contact / Search / Français / Español   

Press Release

Former world chess champion Karpov makes move to help children

Monday, 13 November 2000 - Former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov declared today that he will campaign vigorously for children's rights today in a friendly tête-à-tête with UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

Karpov was recently made UNICEF's Regional Ambassador for Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic States.

"This is really a great honour for UNICEF," Bellamy said following her meeting with the Grand Master. "I can't imagine a better partner for us. Champion chess requires strategic thinking, intelligence and savvy, a flare for the unconventional and deep personal commitment. Achieving real change for the world's children requires those same talents, and we are enormously grateful that Mr. Karpov has devoted himself to being a champion for children."

"Of all the moves Mr. Karpov has made in his illustrious career, this is perhaps the most important move of all," Bellamy added.

UNICEF noted that the countries where Mr. Karpov will concentrate his efforts are roiling with change - places where millions of young people have been hit by growing poverty, weakened social safety nets, ethnic discrimination and armed conflict over the past decade.

Mr. Karpov, who has collaborated with UNICEF on an informal basis for several years, said he would continue a personal battle to put children's rights "at the centre of the region's political agenda."

He has taken a special interest in substance-abuse prevention among young people, and the International Association of Peace Foundations - a Moscow-based non-governmental association that brings together affiliates from across the region, and which Mr. Karpov chairs - has provided support for child victims of armed conflict and children affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Karpov initiated the World Youth Chess Championship, which sponsors regular tournaments around the world, including for disadvantaged young people. He serves as mentor and promoter of Young People's Chess Clubs throughout the CIS.

He is an active volunteer in a range of civil society initiatives, with emphasis on child rights, peace-building and social development.

As Regional Ambassador, Mr. Karpov said he will help build the Global Movement for Children by drawing public attention to the needs and rights of children in the region's 27 countries, and will take part in key regional events leading up to the September 2001 UN Special Session on Children.

Born on 23 May 1951 in Zlatoust, a town in the Ural Mountains of Russia, Mr. Karpov graduated as an economist from Leningrad University and is today a Senior Research Fellow at Moscow State University. World Chess Champion from 1975-1985 and again in 1993, Mr. Karpov's many books on his career as an International Grand Master have been best-sellers in several languages.

Mr. Karpov himself has been awarded a number of distinctions. He won the Soviet Union's highest prize, the Order of Lenin, and served as a member of the Supreme Soviet. In the post-Soviet era, he was the first to receive the Russian State Parliament's highest award. The Russian Orthodox Church has decorated Mr. Karpov for his efforts to restore the country's churches and other historic sites.

* * *

For further information or media interviews with Mr. Karpov, please contact:

Alfred Ironside, UNICEF Media, New York (212) 326-7261
aironside@unicef.org

Robert Cohen, UNICEF Media, Geneva (41-22) 909-5631
rcohen@unicef.org