By RANDY KENNEDY


Since the tradition began in 1954, the title of goodwill ambassador for United Nations’agencies has usually been appended to names that might have been borrowed from the credits for a film festival: Danny Kaye, Audrey Hepburn, Mia Farrow, Susan Sarandon and, lately, Angelina Jolie and George Clooney.

But on April 28, the next ambassador was announced: Ross Bleckner, the painter, who will be the first fine artist named to the ceremonial post. He is a man well known in certain circles but not often followed by paparazzi.

Earlier this year Mr. Bleckner, whose mostly abstract work came to prominence in the 1980s and who has long been involved in AIDS-related causes, went on an official mission to the Gulu district of northern Uganda. Gulu has been terrorized for many years by the rebel force known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has abducted and conscripted thousands of children, forcing boys and girls to become killers and sex slaves.

Mr. Bleckner said that when United Nations officials first approached him, they asked him whether he thought art could perform a useful role in drawing attention to the plague of human trafficking, which they said still receives too little attention.

“And I said to them that if art can’t perform a role like that, then it has no role at all,”he said on the day of the announcement.

Using thousands of dollars’ worth of paint, brushes and paper shipped from New York, Mr. Bleckner, 59, worked with a group of 25 children - former abductees and ex-soldiers - for more than a week at an aid center. The children made 200 paintings that will be sold at a benefit at the United Nations headquarters on May 12, at which Mr. Bleckner will be appointed goodwill ambassador.

“One of the things we realized about a fine artist, a painter, in this role is that the work that emerges from it really needs no translation, no dubbing like a documentary or music - it’s immediately accessible to anyone who sees it, said Simone Monasebian, the New York chief of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Her office estimates that human trafficking generates $32 billion a year in profits, third only to drug and arms trafficking.

The former abductees, many of them orphans ranging in age from 11 to 19, had experienced horrific trauma; some had been forced to kill or maim other children or adults before they escaped from, or were released by, the rebel movement.

Mr. Bleckner said that after several days of teaching them rudimentary painting and drawing skills, many began to confide in him and to create work that powerfully expressed their experiences.

One haunting portrait made as part of the project is thought to be that of a henchman of Joseph Kony, the infamous commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Mr. Kony is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, whose Trust Fund for Victims helped identify the children who participated in the painting project.

Mr. Bleckner said that he planned to return to the area early next year to enlarge the painting project and that - in his role as ambassador - he hoped to enlist many more artists to become involved in efforts to fight child enslavement and trafficking.




Ross Bleckner taught painting to Ugandan children victimized by war. Their works will be sold in a benefit May 12 at United Nations headquarters.