Angelina Jolie – history

ARGUMENT Angelina Jolie, even the name has a certain rhythm to it. Love or hate her, you cannot be indifferent about her. To say she is a goddess is stating the obvious. Has there ever been a more talked about woman since Princess Diana? It is hard to believe that she only just turned 38, she has achieved in those years what most people will never achieve if they lived to be 100 years. There is no question that Angelina is a trailblazer, always a leader and never a follower.Contrary to opinions that the media has shown over time, she is not afraid to speak and live honestly. The media has created an image of an Angelina that bears no resemblance to who she is, the tabloids especially have turned her life into a soap opera and creating drama where none exists. The tabloids have been especially vicious in their relentless attack on this woman. I ask myself why? What is it about this woman that so threaten other women. As one columnist so succinctly put it, â€Å"Angelina does not make us feel good about ourself. This is a woman who at the age of 26 adopted a child while most of her peers have been parroting to the media about wanting to be a mother, Jolie doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk. Yes adoption has been going on long before she adopted, but she made it cool and acceptable. She has immersed herself in her humanitarian work, earning her kudos and respect from the experts in the field, she donates one third of her income to so many different charitable organizations around the world. Not only does she give money, she gives her time and her heart.It is a pilot. In my opinion, not many actresses can be pilots. Most insecure, self absorbed people cannot relate to her because she is not a train wreck. People can look at the train wrecks that are other women and feel sorry for them and happily say to themselves:’Thank God my life is not that bad, thank God I am a better mother†, but that cannot be said about Jolie. She is a wonde rful mother, a wonderful and loving partner, daughter and sister. The media tries to portray an image of a cold and controlling woman, but yet gain the facts do not bear that out. Everybody that has ever met her always say how sweet and down to earth she is, even Brad Pitt, poor man, did not know what hit him when he met her because the Angelina he met was the real Angelina and not the version created by the media. Angelina is that rare actress that is taken serious both in Hollywood and Washington DC. The media try to create a caricature of her authentic self in an effort assure their readers that one person cannot have it all.At this point, she and Brad Pitt have baffled the tabloid and fiction writers who proclaimed that this union will not last more than six months, here they are going into their third year with four children and more being planned for. To read some of the blogs with the bitter women claiming they are over Brangelina, and yet everywhere they show up, the crowd s well, applauding them. Maybe the tabloids need to get with the program that more people want this couple to succeed.We are constantly told she was a wild child or all the crazy stuff she did seven to ten years ago with her ex husband, funny nobody says anything about BBT’s behavior from back then considering that he was old enough to be her father. Drew Barrymore was a wild child doing drugs and clubbing at the tender age of 10, and let us not forget about Johnny Depp trashing hotel rooms, but of course they are not Angelina Jolie and there is always one rule for her and a different one for everyone else.Angelina is an enigmatic figure, very intelligent, very passionate and highly opinionated, I can’t say I blame Brad for falling in love with this gem of a woman. Her beauty shines from within. The tabloids have been throwing everything they can at her right now, hoping that they can break her, but my gut feeling is that seeing what she has seen in the refugee camps and the war torn countries she has visited, she has a better perspective in life, she is able to see the bigger picture and that is why her detractors will never get to her because she is on a much higher plane.I have a feeling that we will still be talking about this woman 50 years from now, long after the pity party has ended and the fake girl next door has been exposed for the fraud that she is. In the mean time, Angelina will continue to live her life with such poise, class and dignity. She has inspired people the world over by choosing a purpose driven life over a narcissistic and self absorbed one, her critics could learn a thing or two about making the world a little better instead of polluting it with their nastiness and ugly behavior. General OverviewAngelina Jolie first became aware of the world wide humanitarian crisis while filming Tomb Raider in Colombia. This made her turn to the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Her quest was to request t he agency to mandate her involvement in the protection and care for the refugees (Bruce, 2011). Jolie has been involved in the missionary work since 2001. She moved and met refugees and internally displace person in over 20 countries. The countries include: Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Thailand and many more. The most recent was when she traveled to Haiti to console and help earthquake victims (Apostolina, 2006).The ‘Jolie-Pitt Foundation’ was dedicated to the eradication of extreme rural poverty as well as protecting natural resources. This foundation provides â€Å"Doctors Without Borders† which is an international organization made up of doctors and nurses. The organization is mandated to help persons whose lives are threatened by violence. Other threats that people may face prompting the work of â€Å"Doctors Without Limits† is neglect, catastrophes, epidemics and many more. This is a non-profit making organization which is devoted to working with children and other vulnerable people (Apostolina, 2006).Angelina Jolie has been involved in helping children all over her country as well as in other countries globally. She has for many times been among the first to respond to humanitarian crisis whenever children are involved and emergencies of any kind. One of her commitments is the involvement in supporting SOS children’s Villages (GaneshaSpeak, 2010). Her commitment is to ensure that right decisions are made in regard to the welfare of orphaned children. This year, Jolie has been involved in charity work with children in Haiti, as well as refugees in South America.Flood victims have also been rescued from wars and floods. Victims of floods in Pakistan have also been helped by Jolie through her foundation. Most of these children are survivors of war. Angela Jolie coordinates volunteers as well as educational activities that are essential for refugees programs (Apostolina, 2006). Angela Jolie’s program is aimed at rehabilita ting children from streets as well as those who survived war but lost their parents or guardians (Tsaliki, 2011). The Program is organized in a manner that it has an after-school program as well as ongoing community events that help in raising funds.Such actions include car washes and group meals. The program for Doctor Without Limits works in at least 24 war-torn countries all over the world. It has been recognized for the hard work in fostering diversity, tolerance and at the same time enhancing community building. Jolie has done this work among the refugees together with local citizens plus the neighborhood (Puchta, 2008). Jolie’s Missions with UNHCR Angela Jolie conducts missions with UNHCR to help people living in harsh conditions. Her main concern has been the living standards of children that are vulnerable because of displacement.She has made people in need, specifically children, her heroes (Pelteret, 2010). The harsh living conditions have made children vulnerable p rompting the help of Jolie and many others. Jolie has gone ahead to create children’s charity aimed at helping children in the streets, orphaned children as a result of war, famine or natural calamities. Jolie’s children charity is a child-based charity center. The organization exists with an aim of advancing the rights of children. Children benefiting from this program are allowed to enjoy their rights of getting relevant education and basic health.In addition, they are taken through rehabilitation from the effect of conflict and trauma they experience in their war-tone countries or homes (Hallenbenk-Huber, 2010). In order to achieve her goals, Jolie has been instrumental in recruiting and training established therapist who are responsible in treatment of trauma. Children are worst affected by trauma (Hallenbenk-Huber, 2010). Some other people, like adolescents also need this professional care. The trained and established therapists are then released to go out and tra in the local community on how to help children overcome trauma.The professionals are recruited and trained by Doctors Without Limits. They also train and help in the management of post traumatic stress disorders. Jolie has taken her time and resources in ensuring that local organizations are involved in training children as well as their care givers on adoption to a new life (Hallenbenk-Huber, 2010). Jolie has for many years been involved in missions around the world meeting refugees as well as the internally displace persons. Her main accomplishment has been to create awareness of the predicament of these refugees.Jolie believes that refugees need to be recommended for having survived the most difficult situations and still strong to face new dimensions of life (Bruce, 2011). Her biggest aim has been to pay visits to what she terms as ‘forgotten emergencies. ’ These are crisis that media attention has shifted away from, or other humanitarian organizations have failed t o recognize. Jolie is remembered for her commitment and attention to refugees of war tone countries in Africa. She is also commended for not fearing having to travel to countries or areas that are at war.For instance, Jolie visited Darfur region in Sudan when it was at war in the year 2004. In addition, she visited Chad during its Civil war and Iraq during the Gulf war. Therefore, Jolie shows she has had her commitment in helping victims or war and refugees (Bruce, 2011). Furthermore, Jolie has been using her public profile in making her humanitarian campaigns. She has been promoting humanitarian causes using the media. In addition, she got involved in promoting humanitarian causes on a political level. In several occasions, Jolie has been involved in the celebration of World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C. Apart from these; Jolie has also lobbied for humanitarian aid in the United States meeting with members of congress petitioning their support in this field. Humanitarian Foundati ons under Angelina Jolie Apart from â€Å"Doctors Without Limits†, Jolie has established other charitable organizations. The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation was dedicated to both community development and environmental conservation in Cambodia. Jolie has also taken part in the establishment of Maddox Chivan Children’s Center in partnership with the ‘Global Health Committee’.The center is a children’s day care facility for children affected and afflicted by HIV in the capital of Cambodia (Bruce, 2011). In addition, she was also involved in the establishment of Jolie-Pitt foundation aimed at rehabilitating and helping children attain education. Children recruited into this facility are victims of both natural or man made humanitarian disasters. Apart from these, Jolie has also partnered with Microsoft Corporation in the establishment of ‘Kids in Need of Defense’. The program provides to children free legal council to unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States (Apostolina, 2006).Angelina Jolie has also taken part in the rehabilitation of children of the streets and street families. Her foundations have come up with programs that employ personnel who work through out the night looking for vulnerable children. They walk through out the streets providing children of the streets with food and clothing. In addition, Jolie has also initiated programs that are instrumental in the provision of medicine and mobile health facilities to children in the streets and countries at war. Furthermore, these children are encouraged to join schools (Hallenbenk-Huber, 2010).The foundation through the management of Jolie’s partnership with other aid agencies provides these children with school materials. This is a way that Jolie is using to help vulnerable children in the streets to pursue their education as well as get their daily basic needs. Humanitarian agencies also encourage workers from different foundation establish ed by Jolie to establish personal relationship with the children (Hallenbenk-Huber, 2010). Personal relationship with the children is to help them develop interpersonal relationship and develop a positive attitude.In addition, personal relationship is essential because children will learn how to address the root cause of their vulnerability. Moreover, the foundation workers will also be in a position to know how to start helping the children. Jolie has received world wide recognition for her involvement in Humanitarian work. For instance, in 2003, Jolie was the firs recipient of the Citizen of the World award. The ward was a creation of the United Nations Correspondents Association (GaneshaSpeak, 2011). In addition, the president of Cambodia awarded Jolie citizenship of his country following her committed humanitarian support.Jolie made open her motives for joining the humanitarian field in 2001. Her message was instrumental in the provision of humanitarian aid. Joie said that it wa s unfair to sit and watch as we ignore information regarding the fact that millions of individuals were out suffering. She said how much she wanted to help. She was inspired by the feeling that all are human and we all can have the same feeling at some point (GaneshaSpeak, 2011). In addition, Jolie emphasized the need for justice equality to all aiming at every one having a chance for life. Her inspiration was that everyone would run for help should we be in a needy situation.