Angelina Jolie is many things – a mother of six, an actress, producer and director, the founder of several international charities, the special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and a Time Magazine columnist. In her capacity as a Time columnist – and given her two decades of work with the UNHCR – Angelina sat down for a video-conference with Time’s editor in chief Edward Felsenthal this week. The focus was about how the pandemic will have lasting repercussions for children, for women and for everybody for years to come. Just know that I only got halfway through the video and I was already crying. She talks about hunger and poverty and child-marriage and how devastating it will be for so many young girls (around the world) to miss school for just one week, nevermind months at a time.

It’s not a hopeful conversation. It’s not meant to be hopeful. It’s meant to remind people that even if the virus goes away by the end of the year, we can’t unring the bell – we can’t make up for lost time when it comes to child marriages, hunger, food insecurity, etc.

People Magazine points out that not only did Angelina donate $1 million to No Kid Hungry, she also made a donation to the UNHCR and “sent support to the schools she funds in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kenya and Namibia to help ensure they can continue teaching and learning through the pandemic.” She currently funds 10 schools in Cambodia, one girls’ school in Kenya and two girls’ schools in Afghanistan. She’s also working with UNESCO to establish a Global Education Coalition for distance-learning through the pandemic. God, she really is extraordinary.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty.