Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Subject: IPS:UNICEF Celebrity Envoy
Date: 16 Aug 92  12:19:44 EST




/* Written 12:11 am  Aug 15, 1992 by newsdesk in
cdp:ips.englibrary */ Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all
rights reserved.  Permission to re- print within 7 days of
original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Title: CHILDREN: UNICEF celebrity envoy focuses on Ethiopians'
plight

new york aug 11 (ips)-- after a two-week tour of war-ravaged
ethiopia, japanese talk show personality tetsuko kuroyanagi says
that hundreds of children there are dying every month of
malnutrition, disease, hunger and dehydration.

kuroyanagi, goodwill ambassador for the u.n. children's fund
(unicef), is working to draw world attention to the plight of
ethiopian and other african children in need of food, medicine and
water.

''if the international community does not respond to their needs,
they will be lost to this world'', kuroyanagi told ips tuesday.

unicef's only goodwill ambassador from asia, kuroyanagi is one of
japan's most popular television personalities and a best- selling
author. since 1984, she has raised over 11 million dollars for the
cause of suffering children throughout the world.

kuroyanagi has been on unicef field missions to tanzania, niger,
india, mozambique, vietnam, kampuchea, angola, bangladesh and
iraq.

after each tour, she has produced a prime-time television show
giving the japanese public an eyewitness account of the suffering
of children caught up in military conflicts, droughts, cyclones
and famines.

''when i get back to japan, i plan to produce a 90-minute
programme on the plight of children in ethiopia where 15 to 20 die
every day,'' she said.

with a television audience of over 25 million viewers, her
programmes on average have raised over one million dollars
annually. these donations have come not from big corporations, but
from individual japanese citizens including children and
housewives.

''with their visual impact, my programmes have succeeded in
striking a sympathetic chord in the hearts of the average japanese
who have publicly expressed their feelings for the sufferings of
third world children,'' kuroyanage said.

kuroyanagi, who has produced her own talk shows for 17 years,
currently works for tv asahi, one of the major japanese networks.

she said she has undertaken her annual unicef goodwill visits on
vacation time.(more/ips)

children: unicef celebrity envoy focuses on ethiopians'
plight(2-e)

children: unicef celebrity(2)

other unicef ambassadors include movie stars roger moore, liv
ullman and audrey hepburn.

unicef gives a high priority to africa, where the number of
malnourished and dying children is rising as a result of
underdevelopment, natural disasters, economic mismanagement, debt,
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (aids), war and insufficient
international support and investment.

in a report released at its executive board meeting in june,
unicef linked africa's continued low rates of child survival to
population growth, which is outstripping efforts to increase food
accessibility and expand education, health, water supply and
sanitation services.

less than 50 percent of all africans have access to modern health
care services and only 41 percent to safe water.

aids will orphan an estimated 10 million to 15 million african
children by the year 2000. diseases such as cholera and malaria
are also resurgent.

to respond to these emergencies, unicef and the organization of
african unity are jointly sponsoring a major international
conference on assistance to african children, in senegal november
25-27.

the conference aims to mobilise international donor support for
unicef national programmes of action.(end/ips/cw/td/wr/92)

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