Angelina Jolie's Efforts Toward Humanitarian Causes

Angelina Jolie, a popular movie star and celebrity, is also known for her humanitarian efforts. She is known for her roles in Girl Interrupted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, where she met her husband, also a movie star in celebrity, Brad Pitt. Her most memorable portrayal is said to be her role in Tomb Raider as Lara Croft. This movie was shot in Cambodia, were Angelina Jolie first opened her eyes to the poverty of that country. She witnessed the beautiful country and the colorful and rich culture. It was there when she started to realize that she needed to do humanitarian work.

In 2001, after shooting the movie Tomb Raider, Angelina Jolie went to Sierra Leone and Tanzania. It was there when she first became actively involved in humanitarian work. She went to these places to see for herself the bad conditions that the refugees were suffering from. Angelina Jolie was shocked at what she saw, that in August 2001, she became Goodwill Ambassadors for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or UNHCR.

The UNHCR is an organization that helps over 20,000,000 refugees in approximately 120 countries around the world. They aim to protect the rights of the refugees, since they believe that these refugees have the right to seek asylum in other countries. They also believe that they can seek to engage other countries to support them. They have helped 50,000,000 people in five decades.

When Angelina Jolie joined the organization, it generated a lot of attention towards humanitarian causes. Her role as a goodwill ambassador is significant. She is the one who communicates to and provides a focus on the refugees through mass media attention. Jolie actually spends her time visiting nations affected by poverty, and she is truly affected by the suffering that these people are going through. Jolie once wrote something about the refugees on her trip to Ecuador. She wrote, "People's lives are truly in danger-not just in the sense that you feel your town is unsafe-their lives are actually being threatened and their houses are being burnt down."

Jolie has helped to increase public awareness on this situation through releasing personal journals of her experiences. You can read more about Jolie's humanitarian efforts in unhcr.org.

Jolie and her husband, Brad Pitt, have also founded a foundation called the Jolie-Pitt foundation which recently donated one million U.S. dollars to people working in Darfur. Darfur is a region in Sudan that is severely affected by a war. She has been to Sudan three times already.

Angelina Jolie commands a high pay packet from movies, and when she donates to charity, usually it is a huge amount. She is now planning to split her salary to charity, her family, and her savings and can each have a third of it.

Jolie is also known for adopting children from poverty-stricken nations, and she recently has two adopted children, with a third coming. One of her adopted children, Maddox, was a Cambodian refugee that she adopted in 2002. The second one, Zahara, is an Ethiopian refugee girl. Jolie also has a child with Brad Pitt named Shiloh.

Jolie's humanitarian efforts do not end here. She has revealed that she will continue to help in humanitarian causes and will remain actively involved in helping the UNHCR.