Protecting Haiti orphans is Jolie’s top priority
By ANITuesday, June 29, 2010
NEW YORK - American actress Angelina Jolie’s top priority is to protect the orphaned children in Haiti, it has been revealed.
Jolie returned to the SOS Village in Santo, Haiti, outside of Port-au-Prince to evaluate the progress made since she last visited the village more than six months ago.
A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010.
“One of Angelina’s highest priorities is protecting children without family; she was there to meet with Haitian officials to try and figure out solutions,” Heather Paul, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages said.
SOS Children’s Villages is an organization that provides housing and long-term care for orphaned or abandoned children in 132 countries worldwide.
Both Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, have been longtime supporters of SOS, and the Beowulf star has visited an SOS Emergency Relief Program in Chad, an SOS Children’s Village in Ethiopia, and the couple also went to the SOS Village in Amman, Jordan, reports Fox News.
“The children are out of their minds. They love her, she’s very hands on and spends time with them and that means a great deal,” Paul said.
“Haiti is a hard place right now, our villages are overcrowded. We have 500 children instead of 200 children who are without parental care with us at the moment. We have 800 children in our school in the SOS village, so there are a lot of challenges. But just to have Angelina there recognizing these challenges really brings everybody up. It’s a wonderful thing,” he added. (ANI)
