Serena Williams is going on a five-day humanitarian trip to Senegal, planning to hold tennis clinics, meet the president and visit the site where Africans were shipped across the Atlantic as slaves centuries ago.

The tennis star was invited to Senegal by the U.N. Office of Sport for Development and Peace in New York, where she attended the first U.N. Global Youth Leadership Summit on Monday.

Williams wants to see how young Senegalese are progressing. She is to meet women and children working on anti-poverty projects, talk with President Abdoulaye Wade and put her tennis skills on display.

There are tennis courts in Senegal but the sport is not popular among the young, most preferring soccer.

Williams will tour U.N. development projects and Goree Island. She also is expected to travel to Ghana.