November 22 2010
Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt donate 150,000 USD to SOS Children's Villages USA
22/11/2010 - The Jolie-Pitt Foundation has announced a donation of 150,000 USD to SOS Children's Villages USA, given in recognition of National Adoption Day, which celebrates adoptive families and highlights the needs of children without parental care.
The activities of SOS Children's Villages focus on children without parental care and children of families in difficult circumstances. We offer various forms of support to strengthen and stabilise families as much as possible, because we believe that the ideal surrounding for a child to grow up in is within its own biological family; with parents who can manage their lives independently and care for their children.
However, this ideal is sometimes simply not an available option, for a variety of reasons. In these cases, placement in a foster family is one of the solutions SOS Children’s Villages advocates, to offer a child without parental care the best childhood possible. SOS Children's Villages plays a vital role in the healing and stabilising of foster care children, and constitute a critical step along the way to family reunification or adoption for many children. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation donation will provide the supplemental long-term financial support needed for a family of four foster children in an SOS Children's Village in the US.
Dr. Heather Paul, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages USA expressed her gratitude for the ongoing support from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: "I am truly thankful that Angelina and Brad understand the power of family – the kind of stable family that SOS holds as an essential part of healthy child development. Together, Angelina and Brad have been eye-witnesses to the great work of SOS Children's Villages in Ethiopia, Jordan, a Darfur refugee camp in Chad, and Haiti. Angelina and Brad know that children’s need for a family is universal."