OlderAngelina Jolie: Refugees Give Me New Appreciation For Life
Angelina Jolie appreciates life a whole lot more now thanks to the world’s refugees. Here’s what the 34-year-old actress told Today Show’s Ann Curry:
On her childhood being much different if she’d grown up knowing what she has learned as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador: “I think it would have got me through my youth easier. I would have been less self-destructive… You see people that have suffered things that you will never, ever know. And you know how lucky you are.”
On making sure her children grow up knowing refugee children: “I want them to see it as an area where they can go down the street and play football with those kids and get to know them, and as they grow up seem them as those friends they spent time with. Hopefully I can raise them with a more accurate view of the world than I was raised with, maybe they’ll naturally be better people. And I’m sure my children will be visiting and learning from refugees in the future.”
On agreeing with Brad Pitt that this is one of the happiest times of her life: “I am extememly happy in my life. My children are healthy and it’s one of the most extraordinary times in my life and I’m able to do good things and good work.”
On being the “next Audrey Hepburn”: “I’m lucky to be in this. And I’m sure Audrey Hepburn felt the same. That she was the fortunate one to be able to meet all those kids around the world. You know, we’re just in a very fortunate situation that we get to be able to give a voice to these extraordinary people.”
On having birthday celebrations year-round: “I do have the twins, and I just had Shi in May. We have so many kids that we just have year-round birthdays. It’s a lot of fun now ’cause the older kids are old enough to help plan the birthdays for the younger kids. So it’s one of the great pleasures of life, the birthdays.” (This quote was actually from her speech at the National Geographic Society.)
Watch Angie’s interview on The Today Show below!
Angelina Jolie - “The Today Show”, 6/19
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8108543.stm
Jolie and Pitt donate to Pakistan
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
The two actors visted Pakistan after the earthquake in 2005
Hollywood stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have donated $1 million to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting, the UN refugee agency says.
More than two million people have been uprooted since the army began fighting Taliban militants in Pakistan’s Swat region earlier this year, the UN says.
Ms Jolie has visited Pakistan three times since becoming a goodwill ambassador for the agency in 2001.
The two actors made the donation through their charitable foundation.
Ms Jolie and Mr Pitt - who are partners - have set up the foundation to help counter humanitarian crises.
In 2005, the two visited survivors of an earthquake which devastated parts of northern Pakistan.
They travelled aboard a helicopter carrying food, blankets and plastic sheets.
The quake left more than 73,000 people dead and millions homeless.
Amelia @ 06/19/2009 at 4:41 pm
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Shhhhhh…….’melia. Its you, actually, not her, thats a bit “off”. To tell the truth, we can smell you all the way over here. You really ought to do something about that “off” smell of yours. Really girl.
Haters can call her names
Say she is a phony
Say she is ugly
Hate on her
Say what ever you want, as many times as you want or as long as you want..
It will never change the fact the she is the most fascintating woman of this time. There is and has never been another like her..
ONE OF A KIND.. Beautiful, talented, giving., loving.. all in one package.
Haters suck on it and go away..
I have an idea that might change the world.
Instead of admiring Angelina Jolie (or others); you all could follow their example and start to support at least one charity work from today on till your last day on earth.
MANY people do this in silence since many years.
(I do too since 20 years)
But to really start and keep doing it is an engagement.
Who of all you admirers and haters here has ever thought of doing this?
Step from behind your pc and start with it.
That would make a better world, if everyone felt they were responsable. If everyone dared to act from their own Mother Theresa nature instead of letting others do the job..
Just my thought..
Rhonda You are showing your utter ignorance. Angelina Jolie has spent nearly a decade visiting and educating herself about refugees, Listen to what she is saying, she is a well-informed, well-spoken, kind hearted lady who deserves respect.
@there’s one thing i can say:
Halle Berry did not sell her baby pictures but people know her and her picture is taken by paps all the time.
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Jennifer Gardner did not sell her baby pictures but people know her and her picture is taken by paps all the time.
.
Thus your argument holds no water
how many times is she going to say the word extraordinary? time for a new word Angie.
I just simply despite people who put down “good’ people who ’s doing great work such as Angelina Jolie. We should judge people what they do rather than in their past.
For those people think Angelina Jolie ’s act was fake, see of yourself if you do anything good for those poor children ? . Angelina Jolie is real and she doesn’t need your approval of doing this. Just get a life and reflect yourself. We admired Angelina Jolie and hope the best to her and good people doing same things like her around the world.
She is so amazing. I love that she is so selfless.
She is so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All these people putting Angie down. I bet are all lazy fat white people.
They are the ones who are always so jealous of what other people have or do.Maniston fans.
there’s one thing i can say @ 06/19/2009 at 5:19 pm
……..I cannot agree with her in stating that if she exposes her children to the reality of life that they would become better people. her children think that walking in the street with 100’s of cameramen rushing about them is normal. this is a reason why i did not agree with her selling pics of the birth of her children even if it was to raise money for her to donate to charity. her children will never live their lives in the reality of the worlds suffering.
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Tell me something…….does it hurt to be this stoopid?? No, seriously. I’ve often wondered what it must feel like to be a dumbfcuk tr0ll - in a roadkill-horrified kind of way, let me hasten to say.
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FYI: The JP kids, at ages 7 and under, are already lightyears away from you in intelligence, being worldly-wise and, yes, normal. So you can mark that one off as “mission accomplished” by Angie and Brad, about the smart, compassionate and empathetic kind of kids they are raising.
.
It is precisely because the JP kids have been exposed to both the world of celebrity and the world of abject poverty, that they will be the most humane adults that they can possibly be. Because, unlike you, they already know reality from fantasy.
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You, on the other hand, remain stuck on stoooopid.
BEYOND FAKE. A NARCISSIST. SWEET, INNOCENT, MEEK CRYING TO THE PUBLIC…COLD, CONTROLLING, ANGRY, MANIPULATIVE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS…
sAMMY @ 06/19/2009 at 5:43 pm
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Do you know her personally or is this just your ignorance and jealousy clouding your already small mind
Good Job, Jolie. Haters got to hate.
To Sammy
” behind closed doors”… now how the heck would a nobody like you know what goes on behind an Alist closed doors!! You don’t !! stop making stuff up up to suit your prejudice agaist a woman who is atually trying to do good in the world. Jeeze.
sAMMY @ 06/19/2009 at 5:43 pm
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YOU. LOOK AT. TOO. MANY. TRASHY HARLEQUIN. ROMANCE NOVELS. AND SH!TRAGS. AND WATCH. TOO MANY. FRIENDS RERUNS AND OTHER SOAPS. YOU SHOULDA STAYED IN SCHOOL, LITTLE GIRL.
.
I think i hear your s.l.u.t of a mother calling you from the double wide.
@sAMMY: you wish. Let it go and realize that the person you were counting on used you for hits on his nasty blog and the tabloids used you for your money. Angelina is the exact opposite of who you wish or want her to be. She’s been Committed to the cause for 8 years and I bet you a million dollars that in 10 years she’ll still be donating her time and MILLIONS to helping refugees. Now get to steppin!!
For all you Lovers Of Saint Angie” she’s a good person, she brings attention to her causes with her celebrity. The people who are doing the “good works” are the very people you mock and ridicule. Doctors, nurses pastor, missionarys who at their own expense go to foreign countries and work tirelessly for free and no one takes their picture and YOU call them names on a daily basis.
Enjoy your celebrity President and you celebrity Saint!
@there’s one thing i can say: I ‘d rather them give$ 1 million to 10 organizations than $5 million to one. Last year they gave $1million to Doctors without Borders, $1million to Global Action for Children, $2million to Global Health Committe to set up an Ethiopian Health center. In 2007 gave 5 million to MIR all donations from the Jolie Pitt Foundation. This year 1 million to Pakistan refugees and money to the hospital in Missouri. Its very curious why I never hear people criticize Jennifer Lopez who received 6 million for her twins pics’ and kept it all for her twins”trust fund for their future’ according to an interview she did with Kevin Sessums for Elle magazine but was published at the Daily Beast.
In her CNN interview with Anderson Cooper about a plea for support on World Refugee Day, Angelina Jolie got more than a little emotional talking about the children she has met in her work with the United Nations in war-torn areas around the world.
But one boy in particular stuck in her mind. And in ours.
“There was a young boy I met who was about 15 who had been shot in the back and paralyzed. And — and his whole family had been killed. And he was completely on his own.
“And — and, yet, he had this really remarkable, unbreakable spirit, a spirit beyond anything I can imagine having. The — the things we complain about on a daily basis — he had lost everything, and — and was just so full of laughter and kindness. And — and he passed away a few months after I was there.
“So I always wondered — you know, it’s those kind of young people that you meet. And you just think, God, in any other situation, if this person had been given a chance, what an extraordinary adult he would have been. How extraordinary for his country, for his family, if he had ever had a chance to have one. But instead, he had so many horrible things happen to him in his life.
“And — but he taught me a lot about just the strength, the spirit. I think of him, and I can’t complain about anything. I can’t — I can’t do anything but be grateful for what I have. Because he was grateful and he had nothing and had suffered everything. So — and there are millions like him. So there are many, many stories.”
……………………………………
Angelina knows not to stress the small stuff. Like haters on the Internet.
The problem I see with this is that she’s talking as if refugees are a type of people. “Refugee” should be temporary; it’s a political and geographic statement about where people are and what’s happening in their country of origin. I admire her work, but to say that she wants her children to play with “refugees” is odd. Not that her children shouldn’t know all kinds of people from all walks of life, but that the understanding should be more around “refugee” as a statement that some things are terribly wrong in the country of origin, and that these people’s identities aren’t as “refugees,” but as diverse people with diverse identities.
@sAMMY: Why are you on this thread then? How can YOU possibly know how she acts behind closed doors? Try using epithets that actually describe her like generous, socially-concious, kind, courageous, then, try to be these same things to others and you might find that you can make a difference too.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31442531/ns/today_people/
Jolie on aiding refugees: ‘I’m lucky to be in this’
Actress participates in World Refugee Day as U.N. Goodwill Ambassador
Working with the world’s refugees gives Angelina Jolie a new appreciation for her life in the United States. “You see people that have suffered things that you will never, ever know,” the Academy Award-winning actress told NBC’s Ann Curry on TODAY. “And you know how lucky you are.”
She also believes her childhood would have been much different if she’d grown up knowing what she has learned as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. “I think it would have got me through my youth easier,” Jolie said. “I would have been less self-destructive.”
Jolie said she hopes that her own children with companion Brad Pitt will benefit from her traveling the globe while she works for the U.N., visiting refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Her son Maddox has already visited one camp. “I want them to see it as an area where they can go down the street and play football with those kids and get to know them and, as they grow up, see them as friends they spend time with,” Jolie said.
@Rhonda: I missed something. Who has mocked pastors, doctors , nurses missionaries,etc for serving others. on this site?
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