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

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were invited to make a special visit to the SOS Children’s Village in Amman, Jordan, by Her Majesty Queen Noor. While it was Brad Pitt’s first visit to an SOS Children’s Village, Angelina Jolie was glad to return.
Children and mothers of the SOS Children’s Village in Amman were overjoyed to receive the visit of a very special friend on 1 October: UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie had decided to drop by again, this time in the company of her partner, the actor Brad Pitt. While Ms. Jolie had already visited the village in 2003, committing to covering the running costs of one family house, it was the first time Mr. Pitt had ever been to an SOS Children’s Village.

Having been invited by Her Majesty Queen Noor Al Hussein, who is the Honorary Chairman of SOS Children’s Villages Jordan, the couple stated that they were having a wonderful time in Jordan with their children, and Ms. Jolie went on to say “The SOS model of providing care for children without parental care is one of the best, as they are still in a family setting within their own country. We hope more people learn about their programmes and give them support”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt took a low-key trip to Damascus in Syria on Friday (October 02) to meet Iraqi refugees. Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, visited two families who had to pay for their freedom after members had become kidnap victims of former leader Saddam Hussein. One woman the couple met had been kidnapped alongside her son and assaulted. She was eventually released after her family paid a $40,000 (£26,600) ransom. After hearing the woman’s traumatic story, the actress told her, “I’m grateful to you for sharing this story. It helps to make it easier to understand your problems. There’s a lot of suffering in this part of the world; you’re a very brave and strong woman for putting this behind you for the sake of your children.” According to Us Weekly, Pitt and Jolie also met Syria’s leader President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma al-Assad. Following the high-powered meeting, Jolie stated, “It is clear that the Syrian people, no matter the challenges or difficulties they may face, have always shown generous hospitality to people in need. I hope that the rest of the world recognises that we all have to share this burden and continue to take care of Iraqi refugees.”

Angelina Jolie was overcome with emotion during a trip to a refugee settlement in Africa on Saturday (September 12). The Hollywood actress, a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, spent a day at the Dadaab Refugee camp on the Kenyan border to see the conditions that 285,000 starving Somali refugees live in. The camp, built to house just 90,000, was set up to aid people who have escaped the terror of their own country and fled into Kenya. Jolie, who hopes to bring the plight of the Somali people to the public’s attention, met a number of families at the camp – and was appalled at the way they had to live. She says, “If this is the better solution, then what must it be like in Somalia? The toilets are already overflowing. There is not even enough space for trash dumps so people are living amongst the garbage. “What is amazing is that as more and more people come into the camp, the Somali families continue to be generous with what little they have, even if that means having one eighth of the water they need and their children suffering from dehydration. “The Somali families I met today are full of warmth and affection. I wish more people could meet them because then they would have a stronger desire to help.”

Angelina Jolie has been left awestruck by the strength of the thousands of displaced citizens in war-torn Iraq after paying her third visit to the country on July 23 on behalf of the United Nations. The Hollywood actress, a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador, met with four families who had been forced to relocate from their home in the district of Abu Ghraib to the west of Baghdad. The locals spoke to mother-of-six Jolie about the hardships they faced and their struggle to cover medical costs for various illnesses, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. After hearing about one man’s fight to raise his family in the tough conditions, the Tomb Raider star said, “It takes a lot of strength for you to survive this life. I don’t know if I would be strong enough to survive this.” Jolie observed some changes in conditions since her last visit, but admitted a lot still needed to be done before the refugees could return to normality. She noted, “There are some changes. There are returns of displaced people, not a big number, but there is progress. This is a moment where things seem to be improving on the ground, but Iraqis need a lot of support and help to rebuild their lives.” Jolie has vowed to return to do all she can to help refugees rebuild their lives, telling the families, “I want to come back and find you in a better place and in a different situation. We hope that UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the government will support you in getting a piece of land. You need help not because you are poor, but because you are the future of Iraq.”