Humanitarian award for Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie feels “a sense of responsibility” toward people “all around the world”. The 42-year-old actress – who has Maddox, 16; Pax, 14; Zahara, 12; Shiloh, 11; and nine-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne with her estranged husband Brad Pitt – was bestowed with a humanitarian award from the United Nations at the Correspondents Association Awards last Friday.
While accepting her award, the By The Sea actress revealed that she always strives to be a “global citizen”, and while she believes the term still makes her an American at heart, she can also connect with people across the world.
She said: “It is being suggested by some people today that to consider yourself a global citizen is to care less for your country, to be insufficiently patriotic. We’ve been led to believe that international institutions and treaties, commitments on human rights built over generations, are a straightjacket upon the interests of individual countries. As if the only way for any nation to rise is at the expense of others. like everyone here, I love my own country. I am proud to be American. But I also feel a sense of responsibility towards all other people all around the world fighting for the freedoms that we are very lucky to have secured years ago. And for me, this is what it means to be a citizen of the world: seeing yourself in the struggles of others.” The beauty also thanked the United Nations staff who “routinely serve under difficult conditions and every kind of danger because they believe in and value every refugee life”. Angelina took a moment to address her privilege as an actress which as made it possible for her to work with the UN alongside having a large family, as she noted that many of her female colleagues “have been unable to have a family because of the dangerous places they have worked for years on end and the sacrifices they have made”.