• September 19, 2005
• Vol. 64
• No. 12

Angelina Jolie: Another Love

In An MTV Special Far from Hollywood (and Brad), Jolie Brings Aid—and Attention—to Kenya's Poor

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From PEOPLE Magazine

Her years as an actress have taught Angelina Jolie to survive Hollywood—from dressing for the red carpet to navigating a high-profile romance with Brad Pitt. But her years as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have taught her something more valuable: There is no point giving a village a cow if what it needs is a few plants. "I've seen dehydrated food dropped in places where they've had a drought for four years," Jolie told PEOPLE. "It's important to understand each individual village and people."

That understanding was her goal when she packed up Maddox last May and traveled to the remote village of Sauri in Kenya for the MTV special The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, airing Sept. 14. Accompanied by Dr. Sachs, an economist and U.N. adviser whose Millennium Project helps poverty-stricken villages become self-sufficient, Jolie "waded right in," says Dr. Sachs. "She is becoming an incredible leader."

And so impressed by the progress she saw in Sauri over the course of a year—healthy crops, a clinic, school meals and Internet training—that she plans to help create more Millennium Villages in the birth countries of her children: Ethiopia for Zahara, 8 months, and Cambodia for Maddox, 4, who, Jolie notes, was a great companion on her trip to Sauri. "Mad loves Africa. He loves walking around the markets." What she loved? "It sounds really corny," says Jolie, "but you could tell that there's hope."