Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie doing charity work (https://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/laurenb/2010 ())

A hero is someone who is giving and dedicated to protecting the wellbeing of others. A hero doesn't have to be winning awards or giving speeches because, even doing something small could greatly help someone in need.

My hero is Angelina Jolie, not because she's famous or an actress but because of all the things she's used her fame and money for. Angelia Jolie has helped countless organizations and charities around the world. She first became aware of how bad humanitarian crises were during the filming of Tomb Raider in Cambodia. She went to the The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The agency lead and co-ordinated international actions for protecting refugees and resolve refugee issues around the world. There is a Jolie-Pitt Foundation that's dedicated to conserving our natural resources, protecting wildlife, and wiping out extreme rural poverty. The foundation donated 1 million dollars to Doctors Without Borders, which is a organization that provides aid to people whose life is threatened by neglect, violence, epidemics, conflict from armed forces, natural disasters, or exclusion from health care.

Angelina Jolie is dedicated to raising awareness of refugee situations around the world and has met with members of congress at least 20 times from 2003 to lobby humanitarian interests. In 2006 alone, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt gave around 6 million dollars to charities. They know that they have and excess of money they do not need, so they put it to a good cause and help others who really do need it. She even arranged a deal with People Magazine that allowed them to print the first picture of her pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to a charity. Since filming the Tomb Raider, she has been on field missions and to refugee camps around the world and donated very large sums of money to countless organizations. Just being in Cambodia for filming has changed her outlook greatly on the issues in our world, most likely making the things she heard about back in America become so much more real than stories on the news.

Angelina Jolie has made me realize that the things we hear about in school and in the news papers are actually happening and are probably a lot worse than they sound. She has showed how important selflessness is and how much just one person can help. I hope to someday be able to help as much as she does and impact the world in a positive way.

If more people saw the extent of the situations, we all would be more inclined to help, but unfortunately the majority of people do not understand how terrible things are in other countries. Angelina Jolie has seen the issues in other countries with her own eyes and continues to do more and more to help the refugee situation along with other causes.