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| | | | Angelina Jolie - Humanitarian work... 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 | | | 2001 - Jolie first became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises while filming Tomb Raider in poverty-stricken and widely mined Cambodia.According to Jolie, "I discovered things about what's happening in the world... Cambodia was really eye opening for me." Deeply affected by these experiences, she eventually turned to UNHCR for more information on international trouble spots. In the following months she agreed to visit different refugee camps around the world to learn more about the situation and the conditions in the area.
In February, Jolie went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed how shocked she was by these first missions. She then flew to Cambodia in June for two weeks, mainly concentrating on the land mine situation there, and later in August for ten days visited refugee camps in Pakistan which primarily host Afghan refugees; responding to an international UNHCR emergency appeal she decided to donate $1 million for Afghan refugees. She insisted on covering all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.
Impressed by her interest and devotion in the subject, UNHCR named her a Goodwill Ambassador on August 27, 2001 at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva. During a press conference she explained her motives for joining the refugee agency: "We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us."
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jolie was sporadically criticized for her commitment with Afghan refugees; she even received three death threats. Back to top | | | | 2002 - In March 2002 – while filming the movie Beyond Borders – Jolie visited Osire refugee camp in Namibia, home to mostly Angolan refugees, and met the UNHCR’s Representative in Namibia, Hesdy Rathling. She and the production team of her movie later donated 270 tents and several hundred items of bedding and mattresses to the camp.
Jolie’s next field mission brought her to the Tham Hin refugee camp in Thailand in May. Accompanied by the UN refugee agency's Regional Representative, Jahanshah Assadi, she toured the camp and was briefed by the Thai authorities in the camp as well as the refugee committee and refugee elders. The following month she took a four day trip to Ecuador visiting Colombian refugees – taking a closer look at the “Western Hemisphere's most severe humanitarian crisis”.
Jolie attended a land mine awareness centre in Cheshire, UK in October and later that month went to Kenya visiting the Kakuma refugee camp that hosts more than 80,000 refugees, mainly from Sudan. UNHCR's Representative to Kenya, George Okoth-Obbo, praised her “presence, just to bring some joy into what is undoubtedly a hard life for many of the people here”.
She went on a four-day mission to Kosovo in December, visiting return sites and met a team of women de-miners in the capital, Pristina. She also traveled to various enclaves in the volatile Mitrovica region, where she met Croatian refugees, minorities and mixed communities; she described the camps as a “sad place, hard to see how it can ever return to normal“. Back to top | | | 2003 - In March 2003 Jolie embarked on a six-day mission to Tanzania and traveled to the western border camps to learn more about UNHCR's operations in the area.She visited Lugufu camp, hosting some 85,000 Congolese refugees, and followed a group of 91 separated children who had just arrived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo . She also donated $50,000 to the Kurasini orphanage in the capital.
She paid a week-long visit to Sri Lanka in April getting a first–hand look at the post–war conditions in northern Sri Lanka, visiting recent returnees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other victims of the 20–year civil war. In August, Jolie concluded a four-day mission to Russia; she traveled to North Caucasus to learn about all aspects of UNHCR's operations in the region. In Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya, she visited Bella and Sputnik camps for IDPs, meeting displaced Chechens in their tent homes.
In October, she published Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries that chronicle her early field missions for UNHCR (2001-2003).
During a private stay in Jordan in December she asked to visit Ruwaished camp in Jordan's remote eastern desert, 70 km from the Iraqi border. The camp hosted some 800 people who have fled Iraq during the U.S. invasion. Later that month Jolie visiting Sudanese refugees near the Egyptian capital in Kilo Arbaa We Nus. She helped distributing winter clothes, blankets and toys to Sudanese refugees living there and also donated $20,000 to a community health project in the area. Back to top | | | | 2004 - Jolie visited detained asylum seekers at three facilities in Arizona in April 2004, as part of her efforts to give a voice to the tens of thousands of asylum seekers detained in the United States. She also visited the Southwest Key Program, a facility for unaccompanied children in Phoenix.
She went to Chad for three days in June, paying a visit to border sites and camps for refugees who had fled fighting in western Sudan's Darfur region. She also went to Touloum camp, which hosts 17,000 refugees. Concluding the trip, she emphasized the urgent need for UNHCR and its partners to get additional funding in order to continue assisting the Sudanese refugees.
In October Jolie visited Afghan refugees in Thailand and later that month went directly to West Darfur, after she had paid repeated visits to Sudanese refugees in bordering countries to learn about the situation on the ground of thousands of IDPs. She stressed the need for security and access to displaced people's home villages at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
On a private stay to Lebanon during the Christmas holidays, Jolie took the opportunity to visit UNHCR's regional office in Beirut as well as some young refugees and cancer patients in the Lebanese capital. Back to top | | | 2005 - In January 2005 Jolie and UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner, Wendy Chamberlin held a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos announcing the formation of a Council of Business Leaders, an initiative intended to boost UNHCR's efforts to address the plight of innocent people forced to flee their homes.
On March 8 Jolie took part at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, DC. It was there that she announced the founding of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children in Washington, DC, an organization that provides free legal-aid to asylum-seeking children with no legal representation. Jolie had previously visited facilities for asylum seekers in Arizona and she donated $500,000 to the new-created center which will help keep it afloat for the first two years of its operation.
In May Jolie visited different Pakistani camps harboring Afghan refugees. During her three-day stay she also had meetings with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Also in May Jolie filmed a MTV special, The Diary Of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, portraying her and noted economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on their trip to Sauri, a remote group of villages in Western Kenya. There, Sachs's United Nations Millennium Project team is working with locals to end poverty, hunger and disease. The program originally aired on September 14, coinciding with the opening of the U.N. Special Summit on the Millennium Development Goals.
Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni awarded Jolie Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country in August. She has pledged $5 million to set up a wildlife sanctuary in the north-western province of Battambang and owns property there.
In September Jolie was named the new spokesperson for the clothing line St. John starting in the Spring of 2006. The deal includes the start-up of a charity headed by Jolie. The charity will focus on children's issues and causes. It is also believed to be the biggest celebrity clothing endorsement with the actress receiving $10-15 million.
On October 12, 2005, Jolie was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA.
Jolie again went to Pakistan during the Thanksgiving weekend in November – accompanied by her boyfriend Brad Pitt – to see first-hand the impact of the October 8 Kashmir earthquake that killed almost 100,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless. Both met with many quake victims as well as President Pervez Musharraf.
On October 24, 2005 Jolie attended the First Annual Benefit Gala for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, where she pledged to partner with the WHO to treat children in Ethiopia who have been orphaned by AIDS and are HIV positive. She also announced her plan to support the WHO's Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and pledged an initial grant. The gala helped the organization raise $800,000. Back to top | | | | 2006 - In January 2006 Jolie and her boyfriend Brad Pitt – flew to Haiti and visited a school supported by Yele Haiti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean, where they watched children dance and recite poetry. Jolie also arranged a deal with People magazine allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to Yele Haiti. Later that month Jolie attended the World Economic Forum in Davos where she participated in the panel discussion Human Rights: Reduced to Charity?.
During a two-month stay in Namibia, as she awaited the birth of her daughter, Jolie promoted the Global Education Week in an interview with NBC; she urged for the wealthy nations to help all the world's children go to school. She also took part in a conference call with UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has pledged an extra $16 billion towards universal free education. | | | | | Back to top | | | | | | Back to top | | |
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