Angelina Jolie is making a difference

Over the years, the U.N. has enlisted celebrities to help bring attention to some of the global issues threatening us all. Audrey Hepburn and Princess Diana are two notable U.N. special enjoys, goodwill ambassadors whose very presence in a minefield or a famine camp brought media and, therefore, public awareness and charity into play. It is worth noting that the U.N. budgets do not include any, repeat, any funds for these special needs, and it is only by asking and then getting a celebrity involved that the U.N. can generate charitable gift-giving.

And then there are celebrities who get more involved, and their personal experiences change who they are and what they seem to want to devote their lives to. Not all of them are who we would recognize as celebrities in our Western culture. Indeed, currently there are over 70 goodwill ambassadors in regions across the globe with many U.N. agencies (education to food, environment to diplomacy), mostly paying for their own time and travel, hotels, etc. 

As with Princess Diana and Audrey Hepburn, the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) currently has 11 goodwill ambassadors at the UNHCR: Yao Chen, Chinese actress/micro-blogger; Julien Clerc, French singer-songwriter; George Dalaras, Greek musician; Muazzez Ersoy, Turkish singer; Khaled Hosseini, American author; Adel Imam, Egyptian actor; Jung Woo-sung, South Korean actor; Osvaldo Laport, Uruguayan actor; Aidos Sagat, Kazakhstani composer/singer; Jesús Vázquez, Spanish TV presenter; Alek Wek, British supermodel. And there were some famous names in the past too: Richard Burton and James Mason, Italian screen legend Sophia Loren, Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, musician Riccardo Muti and film star Yul Brynner.

And then there is the newly embedded actress Angelina Jolie, who has been elevated from Goodwill Ambassador to Special Envoy for the UNHCR. You do not get that title for merely showing up. Angelina Jolie-Pitt (as she wants to be known) has been so effective, even when the media are not present, that she has virtually been given free rein on the refugee crisis.

And she is making a difference, persuading local government officials to be more generous, rallying aid and food for recently landed boat people, and, never least, getting in the face of recalcitrant petty officials and taking them out of their ivory towers to see the real situation, the real suffering, the real need for hope.

Much of what she is doing cannot be measured, much of what she has achieved will be credited to the teams that follow her up. But her actions remind me of General Bradley: forge ahead, lead the way and create an example of what needs to be done. Now, one person cannot change everything. But in changing something — anything — in actually cashing in every scintilla of her beauty and fame, Angelina is making as much of a difference as she can. How many of us can say the same?

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.