Angelina Jolie, a life dedicated to humanitarian work
Since Saturday night, the Oscar that Angelina Jolie received in 1999 in the category of Best Supporting Actress for "Innocence Interrupted" has a new partner. The actress was awarded an honorary Oscar for her humanitarian work at the fifth installment of the Governors Awards in Hollywood. The most desired golden figure in cinema extends the wide repertoire of awards that the actress has received throughout her career, including three Golden Globes and two SAG awards.
During the delivery ceremony, Jolie acknowledged that it was because of her travels "that I understood the responsibility she had towards others." And it is that the Californian with the most envied eyes in Hollywood has an extensive journey in terms of humanitarian work. In fact, since last year she is a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees -UNHCR-, a position for which she has carried out more than forty missions around the world.
It all started in the wake of "Tom Raider"
Angelina Jolie began her collaboration with UNHCR more than ten years ago. The actress herself has confessed that her interest in world poverty arose as a result of her visit to Cambodia to shoot the first part of the film "Tom Raider", when she realized the great hardships suffered by the population . In 2001, the Californian carried out her first humanitarian trip to Sierra Leone and Tanzania, destinations that were followed by a return to Cambodia and a visit to Pakistan, where she donated more than 740,000 euros for the most disadvantaged. Precisely in that same year, UNHCR granted the first public recognition of her to Brad Pitt's wife, naming her a Goodwill Ambassador.
"I do not feel different from the others" Despite being aware of the great publicity work that her image represents for UNHCR, the actress has never wanted to be the protagonist of favorable treatment by the High Commissioner. She has always refused to allow this agency to cover her travel expenses - which she pays out of her own pocket - and she shares the precarious living conditions of the place to which she travels. «I don't feel different from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, "said the actress in one of her speeches to the press.
Travel around the world
Since Angelina Jolie became aware of the serious humanitarian problem in certain countries, the actress has not stopped traveling around the world. Among the borders that Jolie has crossed are Thailand, Kosovo, Pakistan - where she met President Musharraf and returned from Brad Pitt on Thanksgiving Day 2005 - or the North Caucasus. Also Ecuador, a country that served the protagonist of «Mr. and Mrs. Smith "to recall that the" Western Hemisphere also suffers from serious humanitarian crises. "
Africa was also the destination for the missions of the actress, who has collaborated with Sudan, Kenya, Jordan or Egypt. Her travels have also included her country of origin as a key point for UNHCR. He visited Arizona on what was his first trip under the High Commissioner's flag, although he has since participated regularly in World Refugee Day in Washington, where he began to see humanitarian interest grow little by little in the American capital thanks to your work.
A little further south, in Haiti, the actress wanted to see in person the disasters caused by the January 2010 earthquake, accompanied by her husband, the actor Brad Pitt, where she asked those responsible for SOS Children's Villages to transfer to society the message that this was not the time to push for child adoptions.
She is the mother of three adopted children: Maddox Chivan, Pax Thien and Zahara Marley, all taken in before she decided to take the plunge and have hers of her own biological children. And it is that Jolie has always felt special sensitivity towards the situation of children. In 2006, the actress announced the founding of the National Center for Refugees and Immigrant Children, and little by little the institutions began to recognize her very important work. Among the awards she has received for her humanitarian work is that of the United Nations Correspondents Association, the Freedom Prize or even Cambodian citizenship from the King of Cambodia –Norodom Sihamoní– for her efforts to conserve the country.
