Conservation and community development

In an effort to connect her Cambodian-born son with his heritage, Jolie purchased a house in his country of birth in 2003. The traditional home sat on 39 hectares in the northwestern province Battambang, adjacent to Samlout national park in the Cardamom mountains, which had become infiltrated with poachers who threatened endangered species. She purchased the park's 60,000 hectares and turned the area into a wildlife reserve named for her son, the Maddox Jolie Project.^[113] In recognition of her conservation efforts, King Norodom Sihamoni awarded her Cambodian citizenship on July 31, 2005.^[114]
In November 2006, Jolie expanded the scope of the project—renamed the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP)—to create Asia's first Millennium Village, in accordance with UN development goals.^[115] She was inspired by a meeting with the founder of Millennium Promise, noted economist Jeffrey Sachs, at the World Economic Forum in Davos,^[113] where she was an invited speaker in 2005 and 2006. Together they filmed a 2005 MTV special, The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, which followed them on a trip to a Millennium Village in western Kenya. By mid-2007, some 6,000 villagers and 72 employees—some of them former poachers employed as rangers—lived and worked at MJP, in ten villages previously isolated from one another. The compound includes schools, roads, and a soy milk factory, all funded by Jolie. Her home functions as the MJP field headquarters.^[113]
After filming Beyond Borders (2003) in Namibia, Jolie became patron of the Harnas Wildlife Foundation, a wildlife orphanage and medical center in the Kalahari desert. She first visited the Harnas farm during production of the film, which features vultures rescued by the foundation.^[116] In December 2010, Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, established the Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Foundation to support conservation work by the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, a nature reserve also located in the Kalahari.^[117] In name of their Namibian-born daughter, they have funded large-animal conservation projects as well as a free health clinic, housing, and a school for the San Bushmen community at Naankuse.^{[118][119][120]} Jolie and Pitt support other causes through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, established in September 2006.^[121]

Child immigration and education

Jolie has pushed for legislation to aid child immigrants and other vulnerable children in both the U.S. and developing nations, including the "Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2005."^[98][122] She began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital from 2003 onwards, explaining, "As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball."^[98] Since October 2008, she has co-chaired Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a network of leading U.S. law firms that provide free legal aid to unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings across the U.S.^[123] Founded in a collaboration between Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation, by 2013, KIND had become the principal provider of pro bono lawyers for immigrant children.^[124] Jolie had previously, from 2005 to 2007, funded the launch of a similar initiative, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children.^[122][125]

Jolie on the cover of Ms., in 2015, in which she discusses child marriage

Jolie has also advocated for children's education. Since its founding at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in September 2007, she has co-chaired the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which provides policy and funding to education programs for children in conflict-affected regions.^[126] In its first year, the partnership supported education projects for Iraqi refugee children, youth affected by the Darfur conflict, and girls in rural Afghanistan, among other affected groups.^[126] The partnership has worked closely with the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Universal Education—founded by the partnership's co-chair, noted economist Gene Sperling—to establish education policies, which resulted in recommendations made to UN agencies, G8 development agencies, and the World Bank.^[127] Since April 2013, all proceeds from Jolie's high-end jewelry collection, Style of Jolie, have benefited the partnership's work.^[128]
Jolie has funded a school and boarding facility for girls at Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya,^[129] which opened in 2005,^[130] and two primary schools for girls in the returnee settlements Tangi and Qalai Gudar in eastern Afghanistan, which opened in March 2010 and November 2012 respectively.^[131][132] In addition to the facilities at the Millennium Village she established in Cambodia, Jolie had built at least ten other schools in the country by 2005.^[133] In February 2006, she opened the Maddox Chivan Children's Center, a medical and educational facility for children affected by HIV, in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.^[115] In Sebeta, Ethiopia, the birthplace of her eldest daughter, she funds a sister facility, the Zahara Children's Center, which is expected to open in 2015 and will treat and educate children suffering from HIV or tuberculosis. Both centers are run by the Global Health Committee.^[134]
Jolie has expressed her support for Malala Yousafzai, a teenage education activist in Pakistan known for being shot by members of the Taliban after blogging about life under Taliban rule for BBC Urdu, and promoting education for Pakistani girls.^[135] Following the shooting of Yousafzai on 9 October 2012, Jolie wrote an article for The Daily Beast titled "We All Are Malala," in which she documented her reaction to the teen's shooting, voiced her support for girls' education in Pakistan, and expressed her support for Yousafzai.^[136][137] The following year, Jolie gave a speech at the 2013 Women in the World Summit, in which she expressed her support for Yousafzai, and announced the start of the Malala Fund, a grant system aimed at supporting schoolgirls in Pakistan.^{[138][139][140]} Jolie has personally contributed over $200,000 to the Malala fund.^[141] Jolie also honored Yousafzai by opening up an all-girls school in Pakistan.^[142]

Human rights and women's rights

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Jolie at the launch of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in May 2012

After Jolie joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in June 2007,^[143] she hosted a symposium on international law and justice at CFR headquarters and funded several CFR special reports, including "Intervention to Stop Genocide and Mass Atrocities."^[112][123] In January 2011, she established the Jolie Legal Fellowship,^[144] a network of lawyers and attorneys who are sponsored to advocate the development of human rights in their countries.^[145] Its member attorneys, called Jolie Legal Fellows, have facilitated child protection efforts in Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and promoted the development of an inclusive democratic process in Libya following the 2011 revolution.^{[144][145][146]}
Jolie has fronted a campaign against sexual violence in military conflict zones by the UK government, which made the issue a priority of its 2013 G8 presidency. In May 2012, she launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with Foreign Secretary William Hague,^[147] who was inspired to campaign on the issue by her Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).^[148] PSVI was established to complement wider UK government work by raising awareness and promoting international co-operation.^[147] Jolie spoke on the subject at the G8 foreign ministers meeting,^[149] where the attending nations adopted a historic declaration,^[147] and before the UN security council, which responded by adopting its broadest resolution on the issue to date.^[150] In June 2014, she co-chaired the four-day Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, the largest-ever meeting on the subject,^[151] which resulted in a protocol endorsed by 151 nations.^[152]
Through her work on the PSVI, Jolie met foreign policy experts Chloe Dalton and Arminka Helic, who served as special advisers to Hague. Their collaboration resulted in the 2015 founding of Jolie Pitt Dalton Helic, a partnership dedicated to women's rights and international justice, among other causes.^[153] In May 2016, Jolie was appointed a visiting professor at the London School of Economics to contribute to a postgraduate degree program at the university's Centre on Women, Peace and Security,^[154] which she had launched with Hague the previous year.^[152]

Recognition and honors

Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In August 2002, she received the inaugural Humanitarian Award from the Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program,^[155] and in October 2003, she was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association.^[156] She was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA in October 2005,^[157] and she received the Freedom Award from the International Rescue Committee in November 2007.^[158] In October 2011, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres presented Jolie with a gold pin reserved for the most long-serving staff, in recognition of her decade as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.^[159]
In November 2013, Jolie received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award, from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[160][161] In June 2014, she was appointed an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for her services to the UK's foreign policy and campaigning to end sexual violence in war zones.^[162][163] Queen Elizabeth II presented Jolie with the insignia of her honorary damehood during a private ceremony the following October.^[164]