Actress and United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie was reduced to tears on TV when she highlighted the plight of refugee children around the world to CNN’s correspondent Anderson Cooper
Team Jolie-Pitt to the rescue (photo: Reuters)
Angelina held back tears when she spoke about a particular 15-year-old boy she met. “This boy had been shot in the back and paralyzed and his whole family had been killed, and he had nobody in the world. And yet he had this really strong unbreakable spirit. He had lost everything, yet he was just so full of laughter and kindness and he passed away.
“The young people you meet, you can’t help but think, in any other situation, what extraordinary adults they would have been.” Angelina was speaking to the journalist ahead of the World Refugee Day that falls on today.
The mother of six said she could not imagine any of her children facing such adversities as those living in poverty and suffering in war-torn countries. “There was a child in Tanzania. She fled the horrors there. She witnessed her family killed in front of her. I can’t imagine if Maddox (her eight year old son) were to see something happen to his family and he’d have to grab Pax (her other adopted son) and run and hide somewhere. That’s what this little eight-year-old child did. She carried her younger brother and fed him and they ran for two weeks before finding a safe camp. … These children need our help as a world community.”
On her part and that of her partner, Brat Pitt, Angelina through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation recently donated US$1 million to help the displaced people in Pakistan, a country she has visited three times. Apart from the generous donations the couple has given over the years, they also recently created the Jane Pitt Pediatric Cancer Center, named after Brad’s mother, in his hometown of Springfield, Montana.
Of the Jolie-Pitt donation, the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency, Antonio Guterress said “The donation is most welcome and appreciated. Pakistan is the most challenging humanitarian crisis of the past decade as there are more than two million people currently displaced in the country.”
It’s always great to see celebrities like Angelina and Brad doing their very best to help not only those in their country but the needy around the world too.
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