In my previous blog “Hottie with a Hammer” I chronicled Brad Pitt’s charitable work. Recently, one of PEOPLE magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive” joined forces in Western India with former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn as part of a Habitat for Humanity program. Pitt swung a hammer to help build a new house for a local family in need.
While Pitt was sweating it out in the town of Lonavla, his partner Angelina Jolie was shedding tears during her stint as a humanitarian ambassador for the United Nations.
According to a new article in Newsweek magazine, the actress admitted she “cried constantly” during her first two years in the position.
“I couldn’t really talk about the situation without being emotional. And I went through a period of just complete lack of hope,” Jolie told the magazine.
She went on to defend to her actions by saying that the challenges facing some displaced children are heart wrenching and would cause anyone to tear up. During her February visit to the Oure Cassoni camp on the border between Darfur and Chad she told reporters she came across a disturbed 7-year-old boy whose family had tied him to a pole to stop him from wandering away.
“I talked to him for like half an hour and just kind of looked at him for a long time before he touched me,” Jolie told reporters.
As part of her role as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Jolie has visited camps in Africa, Pakistan and Cambodia. She says she travels without an entourage on commercial flights, and brushes off comments from people who maintain that she is merely a “celebrity tourist.”
“I don’t know if anybody saying that has spent the last six years of their life going to over 30 camps and really spending time with these people,” said Jolie, who revealed that she wants to return to Cambodia soon.
In the meantime, Jolie says she will continue to lend her support to grass-roots prevention programs that help children and promote awareness about the atrocities occurring in third world countries.