Angelina Jolie's Charity Work Around the World

"It was very clear to me there was a lot about this world that I didn't know. I felt really ashamed and ignorant. . . . It just changed my life." -Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is an amazing philanthropist. She is almost more famous for her social activism than for her movies. In 2001 she was filming a movie in Cambodia and first came face to face with the plight of refugees. She immediately took steps to adopt a refugee, her son, later known as Maddox. This "felt so right," she was quoted as saying and thus set a new course for Angelina. A course that would take her to the far and forgotten corners of the globe where her star power would shine and attract attention to millions of refugees and the vast injustices being heaped upon them.

Angelina quickly contacted the United Nations to ask what she could do to help. The U. N. soon announced that they were naming Angelina a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Since then she has worked at a whirlwind pace. In her tenure as ambassador she has toured UNHCR refugee operations in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Cambodia, Thailand, and Pakistan and Ecuador. Due to the fact that the press clamors to follow her wherever she goes,  she has helped turn attention to the horrendous living conditions of the nearly 35 million refugees there, half of which are children.

Angelina has also been a champion of the cause to rid the world of the menace of land mines. On a recent trip she was even able to personally detonate a land mine that was placed near a place where many children play. Angelina was first made aware of the problem of land mines while filming a movie in Cambodia. She says she was shocked to see so many people with missing limbs due to land mines and so she set out to do something. Following in the footsteps of Princess Diana, Angelina has been a figure head and has garnered much attention for many different organizations such as the Adopt a Minefield organization and International Campaign to Ban Land Mines.

And not only has Angelina donated her time to these causes, but she has also donated several million dollars to many different causes. She is truly a celebrity that is to be looked up to and emulated. Thank you Angelina Jolie!