24 January 2010 - Geneva - Football legend Iker Casillas and Wilfried Lemke, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, today launched the comic book Score the Goals: Teaming Up to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals at the United Nations.
Casillas, who is goalkeeper for Real Madrid, spoke at the launch event in his first appearance as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The comic book, which also features Stop TB Ambassador Luis Figo, was co-produced by the Stop TB Partnership, the UN Office for Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).
The 32-page educational comic book features eight football Goodwill Ambassadors in addition to Casillas and Figo: Emmanuel Adebayor, Roberto Baggio, Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba, Raúl, Ronaldo, Patrick Vieira and Zinédine Zidane. In the book the players become shipwrecked on an island on their way to playing an all-star charity football game and have to tackle problems reflecting the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The comic book mainly targets 8 to 12 year-old children and seeks to help them understand the MDGs while inviting them to take action through activities provided in an adjoining educational guide.
Currently the comic book is available in English, French and Spanish. Other languages (including Arabic, Chinese and Russian) will be made available in the near future. Print copies will be distributed worldwide by the partners.