Hingis joins UN effort to help Columbian street children
The world number one tennis player, Martina Hingis, is to travel to Colombia to promote a United Nations programme to help street children.
The world number one tennis player, Martina Hingis, is to travel to Colombia to promote a United Nations programme to help street children.
The UN mission in the capital, Bogota, said Hingis will spend two days in the South American country as a UN goodwill ambassador.
The trip is being organised by the UN Development Programme and Colombia’s First Lady Nohra Puyana de Pastrana.
Colombia has been ravaged by violence for 30 years, involving communist rebels, rightwing death squads, government forces and drug cartels.
Children are recruited by all sides of the conflict, and more than 1,500 are murdered every year.
No one knows exactly how many children live on the streets in Bogota, but the number is thought to run into the hundreds. Many are sent out by their parents to beg or sell trinkets.
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