News
19.04.2003
Source:
Yahoo!News
Jolie to Donate to Sri Lanka Hospital
Actress Angelina Jolie said she'll donate $10,000 to help a children's hospital
in northern Sri Lanka.
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.'s refugee agency, said Wednesday she
was saddened after listening to a group of 500 orphan girls affected by the war
between Sri Lanka's government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam.
The 27-year-old actress said she's making the donation to help rebuild the
pediatric ward in a hospital in Jaffna, an area that was the center of the two
decades-long civil war.
The government and rebels signed a cease-fire in February 2002. A series of
peace talks since September have raised hope that the war, which has killed
65,000 people, may be ended.
Jolie won a supporting-actress Oscar for 1999's "Girl, Interrupted." Her
upcoming films include "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" and "Sharkslayer."
19.04.2003
Source:
Yahoo!News
Angelina Jolie Calling for Aid for Sri Lanka
Hollywood star Angelina Jolie said on Wednesday she was moved by stories of
lives shattered by two decades of war in Sri Lanka and called on the
international community to back the island's peace process.
Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.'s refugee body, said she was saddened
after listening to a group of 500 war-traumatized orphan girls say they did not
want to be mothers when they grew up.
"They wanted to be doctors or teachers...but not one of them wanted to be a
mother, that is strange," Jolie told reporters after spending several days
touring areas of northern Sri Lanka.
Jolie, who won an Academy Award for the 1999 drama "Girl, Interrupted" and had
huge box-office success as Lara Croft in "Tomb Raider," also said she would make
a donation of at least $10,000 to help rebuild the pediatric ward in a Jaffna
hospital.
Jaffna peninsula was the central battleground between government troops and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for a separate state for
minority Tamils.
The two sides signed a cease-fire in February 2002 and a series of peace talks
since last September have given the island its best chance yet to end the war
that has killed 64,000 people, displaced a million more and devastated Sri
Lanka's economy.
The peace encouraged more than 270,000 displaced people to return to their
villages last year, often to homes that had been destroyed.
"They really have come back to absolutely nothing, but they seem grateful just
to be coming back," said Jolie, who has been a goodwill ambassador for the
United Nations (news - web sites) High Commissioner for Refugees for more than
two years.
The 27-year-old actress has visited war-hit countries in Africa, Latin American
and in other parts of Asia, including Cambodia.
She fell in love with Cambodia while making "Tomb Raider" and has adopted a
Cambodian-born baby boy.
16.04.2003
Source:
Yahoo!News
Jolie Offers $1.3M for Cambodian Forest
Angelina Jolie has agreed to provide more than $1.3 million over five years to
protect virgin wilderness in northwestern Cambodia.
The first installment of $350,000 is expected to arrive in Cambodia within 10
days.
Over the next four years, the actress will give $250,000 every year to fund the
conservation project for nearly 52,000 acres of forest known as the "100
Elephants Forest," Mounh Sarath of Cambodian Vision in Development, which is
coordinating implementation, said Monday. He hopes additional funding can keep
the project going for 15 years.
The forest is in a remote area of the country controlled for years by the
defunct guerrilla movement, the Khmer Rouge (news - web sites). The area is
believed to be home to some of the last remaining wild tigers and elephants in
Cambodia, he said.
Jolie, 27, became enchanted with Cambodia in 2000 while filming "Lara Croft:
Tomb Raider." She later adopted an infant from Cambodia.
13.04.2003
Source:
Yahoo!News
Angelina Jolie Funds Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary
Hollywood
star Angelina Jolie has agreed to pay $5 million over the next 15 years to set
up a wildlife sanctuary in a former Khmer Rouge controlled area of Cambodia, a
senior charity official said on Friday.
Jolie, who fell in love with the war-scarred southeast Asian nation while
filming the action movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," has already paid a first
installment of $350,000 to get the ball rolling, Mounh Sarath, head of Cambodian
Vision in Development, told Reuters.
The project aims to protect more than 49,500 acres of forest in northwest
Cambodia, which five years ago was still controlled by remnants of the brutal
ultra-communist Khmer Rouge, responsible for the genocide of the "Killing
Fields."
The money would also go toward helping war veterans and amputees rebuild their
lives, the charity said.
"This is a great opportunity for us to restore deforested areas and protect
wildlife to ensure local communities will not destroy them," Mounh Sarath said.
08.04.2003
Comment:
She's just the best.
Angie's Cause
"I have
always been curious about the UN, and so I got a book and sat up one night
reading about the different chapters of the UN and stopped on the refugee
section. I learned what a refugee was, that 20
million people around the world were refugees, and how 50 percent of these
refugees were under 18. I wanted to find out how I had gone my whole life
without learning about this or hearing much about it on the news, so I called
UNHCR in Washington. I think they thought I was completely insane, but I asked
if I could come and visit and begin to learn. So I did-and then we decided that
I should go on mission to find out more about it. I went to Sierra Leone, some
two and a half years ago now, but my first two trips were kept out of the public
because I wanted to make sure that I supported and understood the organization
fully. Then a year later, I joined as their ambassador...I hope I can do
something beyond just being out here and being someone who cares-which I'd like
to believe anybody could do just by spending some time asking somebody how they
are doing and what's happened to them. But I think because of my job and my
access to the press, maybe we can help more people to understand. I know there
is a lot of hostility to refugees and it makes me very sad, because I've met so
many of these people in different countries. I've seen so many wonderful and
beautiful things about them, I've been told their reasons for crossing borders
and having to be in new countries, what they go through on the way and what they
face when they get there. There's a very good chance that these people witnessed
a massacre, lost their children, survived the most horrific journey, and now
they've somehow crossed the border into your country. I hope that I can say
enough, so that a few people can differentiate between refugees and illegal
immigrants, and pay attention to what it is to be a refugee, and maybe feel more
for them...I believe that in Tanzania there is the largest refugee population in
Africa-that's some 500,000 people. There are so many children, there is so much
sadness, and there is so little that they can do because they are locked in
these camps. These hundreds of thousands of people are living in this beautiful
country and surviving, but they can't think about their future and they can't
really make a plan to go out and do anything with their lives. They have no
country or place that is safe to go to. But I have to say, the first day I
walked into the camps, I saw a food distribution and
I found it so amazingly overwhelming...in one camp I went into the Red Cross
area and there was a girl on the last bed in the ward. She was about nine years
old, and the doctors weren't sure if she would speak to me as she had just seen
her mother, father, brothers and sisters being killed in front of her. But she
told me her story. When she was fleeing, she grabbed her baby brother and they
escaped together-this little kid with a tiny baby. She fed him bananas and they
crossed over from Burundi. She was just sitting on the bed, rocking, with her
baby brother in her arms. Her baby brother was sick and the doctors weren't sure
if he was going to survive. They were very worried about both of them, but we
kept in touch and I got a letter about four months later saying that another
refugee had taken them on and that the baby was doing okay. It is so wonderful
that they survived, but I ask myself how she could ever get over everything that
she has seen. But she is still surviving and one day
she will be a remarkable woman...I don't know what the solution is, but there is
donor fatigue, and I know that after all this fighting many people have lost
hope in the whole region. It is two years since
I was last here, and I had hoped to come and see people returning home. Instead,
the wars have just continued, and these are wars we seldom hear about on the
news because no one has invested here-its not newsworthy, it's in the wrong area
and involves the wrong people..."-Angelina Jolie
08.04.2003
Being
Angelina’s Mother
She may be
best known as fast moving female Bond character, Lara Croft, but drop-dead
gorgeous actress, Angelina Jolie is proving she is more than just a pretty face
in a tight pair of hotpants, as her "mother" reveals. The star of Tomb Raider
and Girl Interrupted, for which she pocketed an Oscar for best supporting
actress, made a lasting impression on Old Colwyn actress, Miriam Turner when the
pair filmed The Fever together in Snowdonia earlier this year. Directed by
veteran actress, Vanessa Redgrave, The Fever is based on American playwright
Wallace Shawn's play and is set in poverty-racked Eastern Europe. Miriam, who
plays Jolie's character's mother, explains how the production tested acting
skills to the limit. "We are mother and daughter in a poor peasant family," she
explains. "Angelina's character has decided to leave her two young children with
me while she goes away to fight along-side rebels. "The scene we're in together
is very emotional, even though no words are spoken. It shows Angelina playing
with her children and we don't know if we will ever see her again. It relies
entirely on good acting." But Jolie, who has a son, Maddox, was a natural with
the child actors, brother and sister, Cameron and Kiera D'Angelo from
Rhos-on-Sea. "She was very good at coaxing them and gaining their confidence
even before filming started. In real life, she is very gentle and ordinary and
this came over especially clearly when she was playing with the children. "It
was so cold in Snowdonia and we were sloshing around in wet mud as we filmed.
But she even got hold of little bottles, filled with wheat, which when heated,
stay hot for ages, for the children to hold and keep warm. "Vanessa was also
very kind, handing us all cups of tea with rum in to warm us up." The Fever,
about peasant suffering and revolt, is a million miles away from the cyber
warrior world of Tomb
Raider II, also filmed in Snowdonia. "It is completely different to the sort of
films Angelina usually does and none of us look at all glamorous," reveals
Miriam, who also had a minor role in TV's
EastEnders special, Dot's Story. "I won't even go to the supermarket without a
touch of lipstick, so imagine how I felt when I arrived on set and the make-up
artist handed me two tissues and told me to wipe every bit of make-up off my
face. Angelina was also completely bare-faced and she looked exquisitely
beautiful." And, according to Miriam, who landed her plum role through Colwyn
Bay-based Andrea Wilder Acting Agency, Jolie lacked the usual celebrity airs and
graces. "Of course, she had a body double for dangerous scenes, so she didn't
have to risk life and limb, but she had a quiet dignity
about her. "She even kindly asked a member of the production team to take a
photo of us together, so I had a lasting memory of the time." And Miriam, who
has three grown-up children of her own, admits she even started to feel
protective towards Jolie. "I did feel motherly towards her," she says. "Whenever
I do any scene, I get into the mode of the character and really try to feel how
they would, so it was inevitable I'd begin to properly feel like her mother."
And hanging around the bitterly-cold scene sets, the pair had plenty of time to
chat. "We talked about our families and she laughed when I explained how excited
my grandchildren had been when I told them I was going to be Lara Croft's
mother, but how their respect instantly diminished when I added that it wasn't a
Lara Croft film, but a very serious one instead!"