ITHACA, N.Y. -- Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), will be the 2002 Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellow at Cornell University, March 4 and 5.

Bellamy, who most recently has been working on behalf of UNICEF with the children of war-torn Afghanistan, will present the Bartels Fellowship Lecture Monday, March 4, at 8 p.m. in the Alice Statler Auditorium of Statler Hall on campus. A reception immediately following the lecture will be held in the Statler foyer.

Titled "Challenges for Children in Today's World," the lecture is free and open to the public. Tickets are available at the ticket office in Willard Straight Hall and at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, 170 Uris Hall.

Bellamy, 60, was named executive director of UNICEF, with the rank of undersecretary-general, on May 1, 1995. In September 1999, she was reappointed to a second term effective May 2000 to April 2005.

In her second term, Bellamy is continuing to work to ensure the rights of all children and to focus global attention on the emerging challenges of immunization, HIV/AIDS, increasing conflict and poverty. She also serves as chair of the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

Bellamy's visit to Cornell is hosted by the university's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. She will meet with students and faculty from rural sociology and nutrition classes and with student groups.

Created by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 to help children after World War II in Europe, UNICEF was first known as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the United Nations system, with its task mission to help children living in poverty in developing countries. Its name was shortened to the United Nations Children's Fund, but it retained the acronym UNICEF, by which it is known to this day. A major initiative for UNICEF and the United Nations was the Second Congress Against Commercial Exploitation of Children, held in Yokohama, Japan, last December. Bellamy gave the keynote address at that conference, a follow-up to the first Congress held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1996.

In New York City this May 8 to 10, a Special Session on Children will be a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly dedicated to the children and adolescents of the world. It will bring together government leaders and heads of state, children's advocates and young people themselves to measure the progress made for children since the World Summit for Children in 1990 and explore ways to change the world with children. The special session, originally scheduled for Sept. 19-21, 2001, was postponed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels World Affairs Fellowship was established at Cornell by the Bartels in 1984 to foster a broadened world perspective among students by bringing distinguished international public figures to campus. Henry and Nancy Horton Bartels are both members of the Cornell Class of 1948.

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