24 July 2007 - An action “I Promise” with participation of Belarus’ sports and show business stars was announced today in Minsk. The Star Team participants who were presented to the journalists will be engaged in solving acute social problems, first of all HIV/AIDS.

Famous musicians, athletes, movie stars participate worldwide in social advertising against drugs, smoking, alcohol, irresponsible behavior – everything that destroys our hopes for the future. These people are united by their title “an idol of the society”. They are models for both youths and adults, for they have successfully realized their potential.

Candidates to the Star Team were selected by UNDP in different spheres (cinema, theatre, television, music and sports) based on the following criteria: popularity rating, recommendations of mass media and the Directorate of National Sports Teams, candidates` own initiative, media monitoring results, their participation in social actions and sustainable popularity with young people who are the target audience of the information campaign “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise”, which provides framework for the action “I Promise”.

The Star Team is composed of pop-groups “J:Mors” and “Tyani-Tolkay”, a duet “Alexandra and Constantine”, Alexander Patlis, singer, Alexey Shedko, actor of the National Academic Dramatic Theatre and a front man of the group “Sister”, Assol Slivets and Dmitry Daschinskiy, silver medalists of the World Freestyle Championship and the Olympic Games in freestyle, Svetlana Zelenkovskaya, actress of the National Academic Theatre named after Ya.Kupala, Olga Barabanschikova, singer and champion of the Junior Wimbledon Championship, Lusia Luschik, VJ of the First Musical Channel, Natalia Nemogay and Valery Kascheev, ONT broadcasters, and Andrey Rybakov, world record-breaker in weight-lifting.

The Star Team members will participate in activities carried out within the information campaign “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise”, and will promote a healthy lifestyle. Billboards with the Star Team participants and their promises will be placed in the streets of Belarusian cities. The promises of the Star Team are the following:

• Promise to be with HIV-positive people!
• Promise cordiality and understanding to people with HIV!
• Promise to help HIV-positive children!
• Promise to raise AIDS issues!
• Promise to pass HIV tests!
• Promise to remain faithful to our love!
• Promise cheerfulness without drugs!
• Sports: No place for drugs!

“We hope that the people who will see the billboards with those slogans will also think in their hearts what kind of promise each one of us can give to help stop the epidemic,” Ms Cihan Sultanoglu, UNDP Resident Representative in Belarus, noted at the press conference.

Members of the Star Team have experience of participation in various social activities: they visited orphanages and hospitals, arranged charity concerts. They will continue their charitable activities, keeping their active social position with regard to AIDS in Belarus and worldwide.

“To make a promise is a serious thing,” says the actress Svetlana Zelenkovskaya. “When we act not as judges, but as people who took on responsibility for the problem, we feel that we can do something real. The responsibility placed on us is not burdensome. Vice versa, it brings happiness.”

For reference: The information campaign “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise” has been conducted since 2006 within the framework of the project “Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Belarus”, which is implemented by the UNDP in partnership with the Ministry of Health of the country and funded by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. By encouraging people to make their own promises in response to AIDS, the campaign presupposes to develop a real plan of action that everyone can implement. Each of us can make a promise to never take drugs, care about our loved, support HIV-positive.


For further information please refer to Public Information Assistant of the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment project, Maria Malinovskaya, at 270-73-51, or Vladislav Khilkevich, UNDP Communications Associate at 227-38-17, e-mail:

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