Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie give $1 million to Iraq refugees

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation will provide $500,000 for school supplies and education programs for refugee children in Iraq and $500,000 for American children who either lost a parent deployed in Iraq or have a parent serving in that country.

The donations for American children will go to a tutoring initiative at the Armed Services YMCA Operation Hero Program…

“My visit [to Iraq] left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis,” she wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

Jolie, 33, and Pitt, 44, forked over $8 million for their foundation in 2006. That year, the foundation gave $1 million gifts to Doctors Without Borders (International Division) and the Global AIDS Alliance.

[From US Weekly]

Let me just anticipate some of the comments this is going to draw from people who seem to have ire for them no matter what they do: “They’re doing it for publicity,” “They didn’t need to issue a press release,” “They are trying to control the press about them,” “They want to seem like martyrs,” etc.

As I said in a post we just published about Ben Affleck visiting the Congo, at least he’s doing it. Angelina has mentioned that she doesn’t give a rats ass that people hate on her (obviously I’m paraphrasing) and that all the harsh feelings she elicits indicate that she’s doing something right and that she’s “standing strong for something I believe in.”

In a way, I know what people mean about how it seems there’s a story every couple of months about the charity these two do. At least they’re doing charity, though, and maybe it’s like their kids’ posed photos in the glossies: they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It’s an important cause, and one that could use the attention. Ben Affleck practically says he’s willing to paint a target on his head if it gets people the help they need. Maybe Brad and Angelina feel the same way. They did duck so far out of the way that the paparazzi are taking photos of wild animals, though.

DISCLAIMER: This posting was submitted by a user of the site not from The Insider editorial staff. All users have acknowledged and agreed that the submission of their story and its contents is in compliance with our Terms of Use.