Angelina Jolie has met with the president of the Dominican Republic to discuss the country’s aid efforts to help the people of the nation’s earthquake-ravaged neighbour Haiti. The Hollywood actress flew to Santo Domingo earlier this week to visit patients at Dario Contrera Hospital, where dozens of survivors of the January 12 disaster are receiving medical treatment. Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, turned her charity trip into a power meeting when she sat down for talks with President Leonel Fernandez on Monday evening (February 08). The pair discussed the work officials from the Dominican Republic are currently doing to help the relief efforts in neighbouring Haiti, while Fernandez also took the opportunity to praise the actress for her tireless humanitarian work. Jolie made her way to Haiti on Tuesday (February 09) so she could witness first-hand the devastation caused by the 7.0-magnitude tremors, which plunged the nation into chaos. The superstar and her partner Brad Pitt are among a host of generous celebrities who have all given huge cash sums to aid those affected by the Haiti earthquake. The couple donated $1 million (GBP625,000) to the relief effort from its charity foundation.

On Friday, Angelina Jolie released a statement urging support of SOS Children’s Villages, a charity dedicated to serving orphaned and abandoned children worldwide. Here it is:

“We are all wondering how to help the people of Haiti and how to reach the most vulnerable. With 500 villages in 132 countries, SOS offers a family-based village model that provides for the holistic needs of a child — a caring parent, family, community, education and support.
“SOS is the largest organization in the world that addresses the issue of children without parental care. SOS has been in Haiti for over three decades, now raising over 300 orphaned and abandoned children and caring for 4,000 more impoverished children and families to help prevent child abandonment.
“That was before the earthquake. Now the needs for orphaned children are almost incalculable. SOS has been pulling resources together to provide temporary shelter for unaccompanied children, safe areas for mothers, and food, medicine, trauma counselling, and reunification programs for families and children.
“SOS was there before the earthquake, and during it — but most importantly, SOS will be there for many years to come — to raise these children, in their communities until they are self sufficient adults.
“As a long time supporter of SOS, I have visited many of these unique villages personally. I can vouch for their commitment and care for the children. As the Haiti situation unfolds, and we all focus in on ways to help these desperate children — I ask you to please learn more about and consider supporting SOS Children’s Villages.”

To learn more about how you can help, visit SOS-USA.org.
FYI: According to Fashion Week Daily, Ang is shooting the August 2010 cover of Vanity Fair in NYC this weekend! Source: JustJared.com

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s foundation is contributing $1 million to emergency medical operations responding to the devastation caused by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday (January 12). “It is incredibly horrible to see a catastrophe of this size hit a people who have been suffering from extreme poverty, violence and unrest for so many decades,” says Angelina. Brad adds, “We understand the first response is critical to serve the immediate needs of countless people who are now displaced from their homes, are suffering trauma, and most require urgent care.” The Jolie-Pitt Foundation is donating the money to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF). Source: JustJared

Hollywood’s most benevolent couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, were in a giving mood at Christmas, handing over $100,000 (GBP62,500) to the SOS Children’s Villages charity in America. The organisation is a foster care facility, which enables siblings to stay together during the adoption process. In a statement, mum-of-six Jolie says, “We have seen first-hand the remarkable job SOS does to raise orphaned and abandoned children and keep families together.” Pitt adds, “In this holiday season, many of us take for granted that we are surrounded by loving family members. The poor outcomes for foster children indicate that we must do a much better job of supporting them.”

In observance of Human Rights Day, Angelina Jolie has taken to Newsweek to let the the Obama administration know that it’s not doing enough for the Darfur region of Sudan, where “government supported militia have left 300,000 dead and 2.7 million people internally displaced.” In hopes of bringing down corrupt Sudanese leaders, the 34-year-old UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador writes, “I believe President Obama and his special envoy Scott Gration will do their best to bring peace to the region. Their policy, though, raises a number of questions. How is the Obama administration’s approach to Sudan an evolution of justice? In addition, when the administration says it intends to work to ‘improve the lives of the people of Darfur,’ I would like to know what that means, besides the obvious point that their lives could hardly get worse.” Click here to read the full article. Source: JustJared.com