Newswise — Carol Bellamy, director of the United Nations Children's Fund since 1995, and a respected voice in the international community, will speak at the 2005 Exercises of Commencement at Grinnell College on Monday, May 23, 2005.
Honorary degrees will also be presented to Bellamy; Rein Saral '65, Senior Associate Director, The Winchip Cancer Institute, Emory University and Associate Medical Director, Emory Hospitals; Kathryn Jagow Mohrman '67, Executive Director, Washington Program, Johns Hopkins University, Hopkins Nanjing Center, School of Advanced International Studies.
Bellamy, who is entering her tenth year as the director of UNICEF, has focused the world's leading children's organization on five major priorities: early childhood care and survival, immunizing every child; getting all girls and boys into schools that offer a quality basic education; reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS among young people; and fighting for the protection of children from violence and exploitation.
Under Bellamy's leadership, UNICEF has become a champion of global investment in children, arguing that efforts to reduce poverty and build a more secure world can only be successful if they ensure that children have an opportunity to grow to adulthood in health, peace, and dignity.
Trained in corporate law and finance and deeply committed to global peace and development, Bellamy has visited more than 100 countries advocating for children and women.
Prior to joining UNICEF, Bellamy was director of the U.S. Peace Corps. Having served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala from 1963 to 1965, she was the first former volunteer to run the organization, which works in more than 90 countries.
Bellamy spent 13 years as an elected official, including five years in the New York State Senate (1973-1977). In 1978, she became the first woman to be elected president of the New York City Council, a position she held until 1985.
She earned her law degree from New York University in 1968 and is a former Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and an honorary member of Phi Alpha Alpha, the U.S. National Honor Society for Accomplishment and Scholarship in Public Affairs and Administration. She graduated from Gettysburg College in 1963.
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