Committed: Angelina Jolie in NamibiaApril 30, 2006
The Sunday Telegraph (Australia)
LOS ANGELES: A day after being named the world's most beautiful woman by People magazine, actress Angelina Jolie promptly used her celebrity status to back a global education campaign for the planet's poorest children.
Appearing in an exclusive interview with NBC, a pregnant Jolie, 30, urged the US and other First World countries to invest more in education to give children in the developing world a better chance of achieving their potential.
Jolie was speaking from the southern African state of Namibia, where she lives with her two adopted children and partner and fellow actor Brad Pitt.
She is expecting Pitt's child in about a month and could give birth in Namibia. Jolie said that the experience of the two children she adopted in Cambodia and Ethiopia had led her to press for better educational opportunities.
Referring to her one-year-old daughter Zahara, she said: "There is no possible way she would have gone to school. She is so smart and so strong, and her potential as a woman one day is great.
"Hopefully, she will be active in her country (Ethiopia) and in her continent when she is older – and because she will have a good education, she will be able to do that much more," Jolie said.
Later, in a teleconference with British Chancellor Gordon Brown, Jolie said that it had been "proven that a basic primary education can completely change the lives of people around the world".
Jolie insisted her children get good grades at school because she wants them to "do good things" and become "good people".
The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider star is campaigning for better education in Africa, and she insists that her own children will prove her theory that every child blossoms after a good education.
Jolie says she fears her adopted son, Maddox, would have been a street child in his native Cambodia if she hadn't taken him in and given him the means for a better, more fruitful life.
She adds: "In all probability, what would have happened to Maddox is he would have probably been one of the kids doing the garbage-picking in the streets and he would have been on his own."
The comments came despite the Pitt-Jolie family's attempts to remain out of the spotlight in Namibia.
Numerous paparazzi tried to follow them to Namibia, where the Government has been requiring foreign reporters to provide written proof that the Hollywood couple is willing to meet them. Last weekend, the Namibian Government deported at least four foreign journalists.
"The lady is pregnant and you are hounding her," Namibia's Prime Minister Nahas Angula said.
Appearing in an exclusive interview with NBC, a pregnant Jolie, 30, urged the US and other First World countries to invest more in education to give children in the developing world a better chance of achieving their potential.
Jolie was speaking from the southern African state of Namibia, where she lives with her two adopted children and partner and fellow actor Brad Pitt.
She is expecting Pitt's child in about a month and could give birth in Namibia. Jolie said that the experience of the two children she adopted in Cambodia and Ethiopia had led her to press for better educational opportunities.
Referring to her one-year-old daughter Zahara, she said: "There is no possible way she would have gone to school. She is so smart and so strong, and her potential as a woman one day is great.
"Hopefully, she will be active in her country (Ethiopia) and in her continent when she is older – and because she will have a good education, she will be able to do that much more," Jolie said.
Later, in a teleconference with British Chancellor Gordon Brown, Jolie said that it had been "proven that a basic primary education can completely change the lives of people around the world".
Jolie insisted her children get good grades at school because she wants them to "do good things" and become "good people".
The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider star is campaigning for better education in Africa, and she insists that her own children will prove her theory that every child blossoms after a good education.
Jolie says she fears her adopted son, Maddox, would have been a street child in his native Cambodia if she hadn't taken him in and given him the means for a better, more fruitful life.
She adds: "In all probability, what would have happened to Maddox is he would have probably been one of the kids doing the garbage-picking in the streets and he would have been on his own."
The comments came despite the Pitt-Jolie family's attempts to remain out of the spotlight in Namibia.
Numerous paparazzi tried to follow them to Namibia, where the Government has been requiring foreign reporters to provide written proof that the Hollywood couple is willing to meet them. Last weekend, the Namibian Government deported at least four foreign journalists.
"The lady is pregnant and you are hounding her," Namibia's Prime Minister Nahas Angula said.
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