► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans fams
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Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
a genuinely good dude. I'm not a big famous person guy, but he's one that I would like to meet.
a genuinely good dude. I'm not a big famous person guy, but he's one that I would like to meet.
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Pitt#Humanitarian_and_political_causes
Humanitarian and political causes
Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election,[132] in which he supported John Kerry.[132][133] Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said.[134] In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide state government funding for stem-cell research.[135]
Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world.[136][137] He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues.[138] The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean.[139] In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region.[140] Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention on stopping "mass atrocities".[141]
Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture[142] and has narrated Design e2, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.[143] He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.[144][145] The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services.[146][147] Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations.[148] The first six homes were completed in October 2008,[149] and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated.[150][151] Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.[152]
In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world.[153] The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders,[154] followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl.[155] According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006[156] and $3.4 million in 2007.[157] In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.[158] In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.[159][160]
Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage.[161] In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry.[162] In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage.[163] In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Judge Vaughn Walker.[164]
In September 2012, Pitt reaffirmed his support of President Obama, saying, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his US election campaign."[165]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Pitt#Humanitarian_and_political_causes
Humanitarian and political causes
Pitt visited the University of Missouri campus in October 2004 to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election,[132] in which he supported John Kerry.[132][133] Later in October he publicly supported the principle of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find," he said.[134] In support of this he endorsed Proposition 71, a California ballot initiative intended to provide state government funding for stem-cell research.[135]
Pitt supports the ONE Campaign, an organization aimed at combating AIDS and poverty in the developing world.[136][137] He narrated the 2005 PBS public television series Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, which discusses current global health issues.[138] The following year Pitt and Jolie flew to Haiti, where they visited a school supported by Yéle Haïti, a charity founded by Haitian-born hip hop musician Wyclef Jean.[139] In May 2007, Pitt and Jolie donated $1 million to three organizations in Chad and Sudan dedicated to those affected by the crisis in the Darfur region.[140] Along with Clooney, Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Pitt is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention on stopping "mass atrocities".[141]
Pitt has a sustained interest in architecture[142] and has narrated Design e2, a PBS television series focused on worldwide efforts to build environmentally friendly structures through sustainable architecture and design.[143] He founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2006, organizing housing professionals in New Orleans to finance and construct 150 sustainable, affordable new houses in New Orleans's Ninth Ward following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.[144][145] The project involves 13 architectural firms and the environmental organization Global Green USA, with several of the firms donating their services.[146][147] Pitt and philanthropist Steve Bing have each committed $5 million in donations.[148] The first six homes were completed in October 2008,[149] and in September 2009 Pitt received an award in recognition of the project from the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated.[150][151] Pitt met with U.S. President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in March 2009 to promote his concept of green housing as a national model and to discuss federal funding possibilities.[152]
In September 2006, Pitt and Jolie established a charitable organization, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to aid humanitarian causes around the world.[153] The foundation made initial donations of $1 million each to Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders,[154] followed by an October 2006 donation of $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, an organization created in memory of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl.[155] According to federal filings, Pitt and Jolie invested $8.5 million into the foundation in 2006; it gave away $2.4 million in 2006[156] and $3.4 million in 2007.[157] In June 2009 the Jolie-Pitt Foundation donated $1 million to a U.N. refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.[158] In January 2010 the foundation donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.[159][160]
Pitt is a supporter of same-sex marriage.[161] In an October 2006 interview with Esquire, Pitt said that he would marry Jolie when everyone in America is legally able to marry.[162] In September 2008, he donated $100,000 to the campaign against California's 2008 ballot proposition Proposition 8, an initiative to overturn the state Supreme Court decision that had legalized same-sex marriage.[163] In March 2012, Pitt was featured in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Judge Vaughn Walker.[164]
In September 2012, Pitt reaffirmed his support of President Obama, saying, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his US election campaign."[165]
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
You gotta admire Dude for doing his thing...quietly.
And continues to.
Unlike a Sean Penn or John Travolta who had to have camera crews with them and shit. Where are they these days?
You gotta admire Dude for doing his thing...quietly.
And continues to.
Unlike a Sean Penn or John Travolta who had to have camera crews with them and shit. Where are they these days?
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
True ...
True ...
K
kwazdog
Guest
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
This is the best thing about having real money....
This is the best thing about having real money....
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
This is really dope shit. Props
This is really dope shit. Props
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
Angelina Jolie ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie#Humanitarian_work
Humanitarian work
UNHCR ambassadorship
"We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us."
—Jolie on her motives for joining UNHCR in 2001[87]
Jolie first witnessed the effects of a humanitarian crisis while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) in war-torn Cambodia, an experience she later credited with having brought her a greater understanding of the world.[88] Upon her return home, she contacted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for information on international trouble spots.[87] To learn more about the conditions in these areas, she began visiting refugee camps around the world. In February 2001, she went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed.[87]
In the following months, Jolie returned to Cambodia for two weeks and met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, where she donated $1 million in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal,[89][90] the largest donation UNHCR had ever received from a private individual.[91] She covered all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.[87] Jolie was named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva on August 27, 2001.[92]
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jolie at a UNHCR celebration of World Refugee Day in June 2005
Over the next decade, she went on more than 40 field missions, meeting with refugees and internally displaced persons in over 30 countries.[93] In 2002, when asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon."[89] To that end, her 2001-02 field visits were chronicled in her book Notes from My Travels, which was published in October 2003 in conjunction with the release of her humanitarian drama Beyond Borders.
Jolie aimed to visit what she termed "forgotten emergencies," crises that media attention had shifted away from.[94] She became noted for travelling to war zones,[95] such as Sudan's Darfur region during the Darfur conflict,[96] the Syrian-Iraqi border during the Second Gulf War,[97] where she met privately with U.S. troops and other multi-national forces,[98] and the Afghan capital Kabul during the war in Afghanistan, where three aid workers were murdered in the midst of her first visit.[95] To aid her travels, she began taking flying lessons in 2004 with the aim of ferrying aid workers and food supplies around the world;[14][99] she now holds a private pilot license with instrument rating and owns a Cirrus SR22 and Cessna 208 Caravan single-engine aircraft.[100][101][102]
On April 17, 2012, after more than a decade of service as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie was promoted to the rank of Special Envoy to High Commissioner António Guterres, the first to take on such a position within the organization. In her expanded role, she was given authority to represent Guterres and UNHCR at the diplomatic level, with a focus on major refugee crises.[103] In the months following her promotion, she made her first visit as Special Envoy—her third over all—to Ecuador, where she met with Colombian refugees,[104] and she accompanied Guterres on a week-long tour of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, to assess the situation of refugees from neighboring Syria.[105] Since then, Jolie has gone on a dozen field missions around the world to meet with refugees and undertake advocacy on their behalf.[93][106]
Conservation and community development
Jolie at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in January 2005
In an effort to connect her Cambodian-born son with his heritage, Jolie purchased a house in his country of birth in 2003. The traditional home sat on 39 hectares in the northwestern province Battambang, adjacent to Samlout national park in the Cardamom mountains, which had become infiltrated with poachers who threatened endangered species. She purchased the park's 60,000 hectares and turned the area into a wildlife reserve named for her son, the Maddox Jolie Project.[107] In recognition of her conservation efforts, King Norodom Sihamoni awarded her Cambodian citizenship on July 31, 2005.[108]
In November 2006, Jolie expanded the scope of the project—renamed the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP)—to create Asia's first Millennium Village, in accordance with UN development goals.[109] She was inspired by a meeting with the founder of Millennium Promise, noted economist Jeffrey Sachs, at the World Economic Forum in Davos,[107] where she was an invited speaker in 2005 and 2006. Together they filmed a 2005 MTV special, The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, which followed them on a trip to a Millennium Village in western Kenya. By mid-2007, some 6,000 villagers and 72 employees—some of them former poachers employed as rangers—lived and worked at MJP, in ten villages previously isolated from one another. The compound includes schools, roads, and a soy milk factory, all funded by Jolie. Her home functions as the MJP field headquarters.[107]
After filming Beyond Borders (2003) in Namibia, Jolie became patron of the Harnas Wildlife Foundation, a wildlife orphanage and medical center in the Kalahari desert. She first visited the Harnas farm during production of the film, which features vultures rescued by the foundation.[110] In December 2010, Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, established the Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Foundation to support conservation work by the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, a nature reserve also located in the Kalahari.[111] In name of their Namibian-born daughter, they have funded large-animal conservation projects as well as a free health clinic, housing, and a school for the San Bushmen community at Naankuse.[112][113][114] Jolie and Pitt support other causes through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, established in September 2006.[115]
Child immigration and education
Jolie has pushed for legislation to aid child immigrants and other vulnerable children in both the U.S. and developing nations, including the "Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2005."[92][116] She began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital from 2003 onwards, explaining, "As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball."[92] Since October 2008, she has co-chaired Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a network of leading U.S. law firms that provide free legal aid to unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings across the U.S.[117] Founded in a collaboration between Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation, by 2013, KIND had become the principal provider of pro bono lawyers for immigrant children.[118] Jolie had previously, from 2005 to 2007, funded the launch of a similar initiative, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children.[116][119]
Jolie has also advocated for children's education. Since its founding at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in September 2007, she has co-chaired the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which provides policy and funding to education programs for children in conflict-affected regions.[120] In its first year, the partnership supported education projects for Iraqi refugee children, youth affected by the Darfur conflict, and girls in rural Afghanistan, among other affected groups.[120] The partnership has worked closely with the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Universal Education—founded by the partnership's co-chair, noted economist Gene Sperling—to establish education policies, which resulted in recommendations made to UN agencies, G8 development agencies, and the World Bank.[121] Since April 2013, all proceeds from Jolie's high-end jewelry collection, Style of Jolie, have benefited the partnership's work.[122]
Jolie has funded a school and boarding facility for girls at Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya,[123] which opened in 2005,[124] and two primary schools for girls in the returnee settlements Tangi and Qalai Gudar in eastern Afghanistan, which opened in March 2010 and November 2012 respectively.[125][126] In addition to the facilities at the Millennium Village she established in Cambodia, Jolie had built at least ten other schools in the country by 2005.[127] In February 2006, she opened the Maddox Chivan Children's Center, a medical and educational facility for children affected by HIV, in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.[109] In Sebeta, Ethiopia, the birthplace of her eldest daughter, she funds a sister facility, the Zahara Children's Center, which is expected to open in 2015 and will treat and educate children suffering from HIV or tuberculosis. Both centers are run by the Global Health Committee.[128]
Human rights and women's rights
British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Jolie at the launch of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in May 2012
After Jolie joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in June 2007,[129] she hosted a symposium on international law and justice at CFR headquarters and funded several CFR special reports, including "Intervention to Stop Genocide and Mass Atrocities."[106][117] In January 2011, she established the Jolie Legal Fellowship,[130] a network of lawyers and attorneys who are sponsored to advocate the development of human rights in their countries.[131] Its member attorneys, called Jolie Legal Fellows, have facilitated child protection efforts in Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and promoted the development of an inclusive democratic process in Libya following the 2011 revolution.[130][131][132]
Jolie has fronted a campaign against sexual violence in military conflict zones by the UK government, which made the issue a priority of its 2013 G8 presidency. In May 2012, she launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with Foreign Secretary William Hague,[133] who was inspired to campaign on the issue by her Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).[134] PSVI was established to complement wider UK government work by raising awareness and promoting international co-operation.[133] Jolie spoke on the subject at the G8 foreign ministers meeting,[135] where the attending nations adopted a historic declaration,[133] and before the UN security council, which responded by adopting its broadest resolution on the issue to date.[136] In June 2014, she co-chaired the four-day Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, the largest-ever meeting on the subject, attended by 123 nations.[137] It resulted in a protocol endorsed by 151 countries.[138]
In February 2015, Jolie and Hague launched the UK's first academic Centre on Women, Peace and Security, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The Centre aims to contribute to global women's rights issues, including the prosecution of war rape and women's engagement in politics, through academic research, a post-graduate teaching program, public engagement, and collaboration with international organizations.[138][139]
Recognition and honors
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In August 2002, she received the inaugural Humanitarian Award from the Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program,[140] and in October 2003, she was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association.[141] She was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA in October 2005,[142] and she received the Freedom Award from the International Rescue Committee in November 2007.[143] In October 2011, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres presented Jolie with a gold pin reserved for the most long-serving staff, in recognition of her decade as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.[144]
In November 2013, Jolie received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award, from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[145][146] In June 2014, she was appointed an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for her services to the UK's foreign policy and campaigning to end sexual violence in war zones.[147][148] Queen Elizabeth II presented Jolie with the insignia of her honorary damehood during a private ceremony the following October.[149]
Angelina Jolie ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie#Humanitarian_work
Humanitarian work
UNHCR ambassadorship
"We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us."
—Jolie on her motives for joining UNHCR in 2001[87]
Jolie first witnessed the effects of a humanitarian crisis while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) in war-torn Cambodia, an experience she later credited with having brought her a greater understanding of the world.[88] Upon her return home, she contacted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for information on international trouble spots.[87] To learn more about the conditions in these areas, she began visiting refugee camps around the world. In February 2001, she went on her first field visit, an 18-day mission to Sierra Leone and Tanzania; she later expressed her shock at what she had witnessed.[87]
In the following months, Jolie returned to Cambodia for two weeks and met with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, where she donated $1 million in response to an international UNHCR emergency appeal,[89][90] the largest donation UNHCR had ever received from a private individual.[91] She covered all costs related to her missions and shared the same rudimentary working and living conditions as UNHCR field staff on all of her visits.[87] Jolie was named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva on August 27, 2001.[92]
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jolie at a UNHCR celebration of World Refugee Day in June 2005
Over the next decade, she went on more than 40 field missions, meeting with refugees and internally displaced persons in over 30 countries.[93] In 2002, when asked what she hoped to accomplish, she stated, "Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon."[89] To that end, her 2001-02 field visits were chronicled in her book Notes from My Travels, which was published in October 2003 in conjunction with the release of her humanitarian drama Beyond Borders.
Jolie aimed to visit what she termed "forgotten emergencies," crises that media attention had shifted away from.[94] She became noted for travelling to war zones,[95] such as Sudan's Darfur region during the Darfur conflict,[96] the Syrian-Iraqi border during the Second Gulf War,[97] where she met privately with U.S. troops and other multi-national forces,[98] and the Afghan capital Kabul during the war in Afghanistan, where three aid workers were murdered in the midst of her first visit.[95] To aid her travels, she began taking flying lessons in 2004 with the aim of ferrying aid workers and food supplies around the world;[14][99] she now holds a private pilot license with instrument rating and owns a Cirrus SR22 and Cessna 208 Caravan single-engine aircraft.[100][101][102]
On April 17, 2012, after more than a decade of service as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie was promoted to the rank of Special Envoy to High Commissioner António Guterres, the first to take on such a position within the organization. In her expanded role, she was given authority to represent Guterres and UNHCR at the diplomatic level, with a focus on major refugee crises.[103] In the months following her promotion, she made her first visit as Special Envoy—her third over all—to Ecuador, where she met with Colombian refugees,[104] and she accompanied Guterres on a week-long tour of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, to assess the situation of refugees from neighboring Syria.[105] Since then, Jolie has gone on a dozen field missions around the world to meet with refugees and undertake advocacy on their behalf.[93][106]
Conservation and community development
Jolie at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in January 2005
In an effort to connect her Cambodian-born son with his heritage, Jolie purchased a house in his country of birth in 2003. The traditional home sat on 39 hectares in the northwestern province Battambang, adjacent to Samlout national park in the Cardamom mountains, which had become infiltrated with poachers who threatened endangered species. She purchased the park's 60,000 hectares and turned the area into a wildlife reserve named for her son, the Maddox Jolie Project.[107] In recognition of her conservation efforts, King Norodom Sihamoni awarded her Cambodian citizenship on July 31, 2005.[108]
In November 2006, Jolie expanded the scope of the project—renamed the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP)—to create Asia's first Millennium Village, in accordance with UN development goals.[109] She was inspired by a meeting with the founder of Millennium Promise, noted economist Jeffrey Sachs, at the World Economic Forum in Davos,[107] where she was an invited speaker in 2005 and 2006. Together they filmed a 2005 MTV special, The Diary of Angelina Jolie & Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa, which followed them on a trip to a Millennium Village in western Kenya. By mid-2007, some 6,000 villagers and 72 employees—some of them former poachers employed as rangers—lived and worked at MJP, in ten villages previously isolated from one another. The compound includes schools, roads, and a soy milk factory, all funded by Jolie. Her home functions as the MJP field headquarters.[107]
After filming Beyond Borders (2003) in Namibia, Jolie became patron of the Harnas Wildlife Foundation, a wildlife orphanage and medical center in the Kalahari desert. She first visited the Harnas farm during production of the film, which features vultures rescued by the foundation.[110] In December 2010, Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, established the Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Foundation to support conservation work by the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, a nature reserve also located in the Kalahari.[111] In name of their Namibian-born daughter, they have funded large-animal conservation projects as well as a free health clinic, housing, and a school for the San Bushmen community at Naankuse.[112][113][114] Jolie and Pitt support other causes through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, established in September 2006.[115]
Child immigration and education
Jolie has pushed for legislation to aid child immigrants and other vulnerable children in both the U.S. and developing nations, including the "Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act of 2005."[92][116] She began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital from 2003 onwards, explaining, "As much as I would love to never have to visit Washington, that's the way to move the ball."[92] Since October 2008, she has co-chaired Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a network of leading U.S. law firms that provide free legal aid to unaccompanied minors in immigration proceedings across the U.S.[117] Founded in a collaboration between Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation, by 2013, KIND had become the principal provider of pro bono lawyers for immigrant children.[118] Jolie had previously, from 2005 to 2007, funded the launch of a similar initiative, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children.[116][119]
Jolie has also advocated for children's education. Since its founding at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in September 2007, she has co-chaired the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which provides policy and funding to education programs for children in conflict-affected regions.[120] In its first year, the partnership supported education projects for Iraqi refugee children, youth affected by the Darfur conflict, and girls in rural Afghanistan, among other affected groups.[120] The partnership has worked closely with the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Universal Education—founded by the partnership's co-chair, noted economist Gene Sperling—to establish education policies, which resulted in recommendations made to UN agencies, G8 development agencies, and the World Bank.[121] Since April 2013, all proceeds from Jolie's high-end jewelry collection, Style of Jolie, have benefited the partnership's work.[122]
Jolie has funded a school and boarding facility for girls at Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya,[123] which opened in 2005,[124] and two primary schools for girls in the returnee settlements Tangi and Qalai Gudar in eastern Afghanistan, which opened in March 2010 and November 2012 respectively.[125][126] In addition to the facilities at the Millennium Village she established in Cambodia, Jolie had built at least ten other schools in the country by 2005.[127] In February 2006, she opened the Maddox Chivan Children's Center, a medical and educational facility for children affected by HIV, in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.[109] In Sebeta, Ethiopia, the birthplace of her eldest daughter, she funds a sister facility, the Zahara Children's Center, which is expected to open in 2015 and will treat and educate children suffering from HIV or tuberculosis. Both centers are run by the Global Health Committee.[128]
Human rights and women's rights
British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Jolie at the launch of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative in May 2012
After Jolie joined the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in June 2007,[129] she hosted a symposium on international law and justice at CFR headquarters and funded several CFR special reports, including "Intervention to Stop Genocide and Mass Atrocities."[106][117] In January 2011, she established the Jolie Legal Fellowship,[130] a network of lawyers and attorneys who are sponsored to advocate the development of human rights in their countries.[131] Its member attorneys, called Jolie Legal Fellows, have facilitated child protection efforts in Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and promoted the development of an inclusive democratic process in Libya following the 2011 revolution.[130][131][132]
Jolie has fronted a campaign against sexual violence in military conflict zones by the UK government, which made the issue a priority of its 2013 G8 presidency. In May 2012, she launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with Foreign Secretary William Hague,[133] who was inspired to campaign on the issue by her Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).[134] PSVI was established to complement wider UK government work by raising awareness and promoting international co-operation.[133] Jolie spoke on the subject at the G8 foreign ministers meeting,[135] where the attending nations adopted a historic declaration,[133] and before the UN security council, which responded by adopting its broadest resolution on the issue to date.[136] In June 2014, she co-chaired the four-day Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, the largest-ever meeting on the subject, attended by 123 nations.[137] It resulted in a protocol endorsed by 151 countries.[138]
In February 2015, Jolie and Hague launched the UK's first academic Centre on Women, Peace and Security, based at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The Centre aims to contribute to global women's rights issues, including the prosecution of war rape and women's engagement in politics, through academic research, a post-graduate teaching program, public engagement, and collaboration with international organizations.[138][139]
Recognition and honors
Jolie has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. In August 2002, she received the inaugural Humanitarian Award from the Church World Service's Immigration and Refugee Program,[140] and in October 2003, she was the first recipient of the Citizen of the World Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association.[141] She was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the UNA-USA in October 2005,[142] and she received the Freedom Award from the International Rescue Committee in November 2007.[143] In October 2011, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres presented Jolie with a gold pin reserved for the most long-serving staff, in recognition of her decade as a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador.[144]
In November 2013, Jolie received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award, from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[145][146] In June 2014, she was appointed an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for her services to the UK's foreign policy and campaigning to end sexual violence in war zones.[147][148] Queen Elizabeth II presented Jolie with the insignia of her honorary damehood during a private ceremony the following October.[149]
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
Sean Penn is the biggest asshole there is. If you ever see hI'm out and look at him hell talk shit. I will beat his cracka ass if he tries that with me. Some cat in a resteraunt took a photo of him and he broke sons phone and tried to fight him.
Sean Penn is the biggest asshole there is. If you ever see hI'm out and look at him hell talk shit. I will beat his cracka ass if he tries that with me. Some cat in a resteraunt took a photo of him and he broke sons phone and tried to fight him.
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
this is why I feel the way I do about famous people. I can give a fuck. I don't typically care what they do, where they are or even if they are in the same room with me. there are only a handful of stars or famous people that I would like to meet, sit and talk with because I believe they are down to earth human beings outside of the famous shit. Barack Obama, Will Smith, Brad Pitt are the few on an extremely short list.
I was out one day at a mall in Cleveland and somebody famous was there signing autograph. they were taking a break and I happen to see them I guess on their way to get something to drink from the food court. when we bumped into each other, he asked:
"Oh I'm sorry, do you want my autograph?"
to which I replied, "Do you want mine?"
and I kept it moving, leaving dude there with his jaw open. famous people are just regular people with money and the opportunity. that's all. No need to put their ass on a pedestal, especially if they're assholes like I heard Robin Givens is. yes she is pretty as a mother fucker, and especially considering her age... No fuck that she is fine at any age, but she is one of the biggest bitches alive.
this is why I feel the way I do about famous people. I can give a fuck. I don't typically care what they do, where they are or even if they are in the same room with me. there are only a handful of stars or famous people that I would like to meet, sit and talk with because I believe they are down to earth human beings outside of the famous shit. Barack Obama, Will Smith, Brad Pitt are the few on an extremely short list.
I was out one day at a mall in Cleveland and somebody famous was there signing autograph. they were taking a break and I happen to see them I guess on their way to get something to drink from the food court. when we bumped into each other, he asked:
"Oh I'm sorry, do you want my autograph?"
to which I replied, "Do you want mine?"
and I kept it moving, leaving dude there with his jaw open. famous people are just regular people with money and the opportunity. that's all. No need to put their ass on a pedestal, especially if they're assholes like I heard Robin Givens is. yes she is pretty as a mother fucker, and especially considering her age... No fuck that she is fine at any age, but she is one of the biggest bitches alive.
Re: ► The Brad Pitt effect: How movie star transformed the lives of 109 New Orleans f
Always respected Paul Newman's efforts too ... pops told me to read up on his work years back ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman#Philanthropy
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008)[2] was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, professional racing driver and team owner; he was also an environmentalist, liberal social activist and philanthropist. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 film The Color of Money,[3] a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy Award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.
Newman was married to actress Joanne Woodward from 1958 until his death. He was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity.[4] As of 31 December 2014, these donations totaled US$429.3 million.[5] He was also a co-founder of Safe Water Network, a nonprofit that develops sustainable drinking water solutions for those in need.[6] In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Children's Network, a global family of camps and programs for children with serious illness which has served 290,076 children since its inception.
With writer A. E. Hotchner, Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. The brand started with salad dressing, and has expanded to include pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine, among other things. Newman established a policy that all proceeds, after taxes, would be donated to charity. As of 2014, the franchise has donated in excess of $400 million.[4] He co-wrote a memoir about the subject with Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Among other awards, Newman's Own co-sponsors the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, a $25,000 reward designed to recognize those who protect the First Amendment as it applies to the written word.[34]
One beneficiary of his philanthropy is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children located in Ashford, Connecticut, which Newman co-founded in 1988. It is named after the gang in his film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the real-life, historic Hole-in-the-Wall outlaw hang-out in the mountains of northern Wyoming. Newman's college fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, adopted his Connecticut Hole in the Wall camp as their "national philanthropy" in 1995. The original camp has expanded to become several Hole in the Wall Camps in the U.S., Ireland, France, and Israel. The camps serve 13,000 children every year, free of charge.[4]
In June 1999, Newman donated $250,000 to Catholic Relief Services to aid refugees in Kosovo.[35]
On June 1, 2007, Kenyon College announced that Newman had donated $10 million to the school to establish a scholarship fund as part of the college's current $230 million fund-raising campaign. Newman and Woodward were honorary co-chairs of a previous campaign.[36]
Newman was one of the founders of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), a membership organization of CEOs and corporate chairpersons committed to raising the level and quality of global corporate philanthropy. Founded in 1999 by Newman and a few leading CEOs, CECP has grown to include more than 175 members and, through annual executive convenings, extensive benchmarking research, and best practice publications, leads the business community in developing sustainable and strategic community partnerships through philanthropy.[37] Newman was named the Most Generous Celebrity of 2008 by Givingback.org. He contributed $20,857,000 for the year of 2008 to the Newman's Own Foundation, which distributes funds to a variety of charities.[38]
Upon Newman's death, the Italian newspaper (a "semi-official" paper of the Holy See) L'Osservatore Romano published a notice lauding Newman's philanthropy. It also commented that "Newman was a generous heart, an actor of a dignity and style rare in Hollywood quarters."[39]
Newman is recognized as responsible for preserving lands around Westport, Connecticut. He lobbied the state's governor for funds for the 2011 Aspetuck Land Trust in Easton.[40] In 2011 Paul Newman's estate gifted land to Westport to be managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust.[41]
[7]
Always respected Paul Newman's efforts too ... pops told me to read up on his work years back ....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman#Philanthropy
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008)[2] was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, professional racing driver and team owner; he was also an environmentalist, liberal social activist and philanthropist. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for his performance in the 1986 film The Color of Money,[3] a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy Award, and many honorary awards. He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing.
Newman was married to actress Joanne Woodward from 1958 until his death. He was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity.[4] As of 31 December 2014, these donations totaled US$429.3 million.[5] He was also a co-founder of Safe Water Network, a nonprofit that develops sustainable drinking water solutions for those in need.[6] In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Children's Network, a global family of camps and programs for children with serious illness which has served 290,076 children since its inception.
With writer A. E. Hotchner, Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. The brand started with salad dressing, and has expanded to include pasta sauce, lemonade, popcorn, salsa, and wine, among other things. Newman established a policy that all proceeds, after taxes, would be donated to charity. As of 2014, the franchise has donated in excess of $400 million.[4] He co-wrote a memoir about the subject with Hotchner, Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good. Among other awards, Newman's Own co-sponsors the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, a $25,000 reward designed to recognize those who protect the First Amendment as it applies to the written word.[34]
One beneficiary of his philanthropy is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp for seriously ill children located in Ashford, Connecticut, which Newman co-founded in 1988. It is named after the gang in his film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and the real-life, historic Hole-in-the-Wall outlaw hang-out in the mountains of northern Wyoming. Newman's college fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, adopted his Connecticut Hole in the Wall camp as their "national philanthropy" in 1995. The original camp has expanded to become several Hole in the Wall Camps in the U.S., Ireland, France, and Israel. The camps serve 13,000 children every year, free of charge.[4]
In June 1999, Newman donated $250,000 to Catholic Relief Services to aid refugees in Kosovo.[35]
On June 1, 2007, Kenyon College announced that Newman had donated $10 million to the school to establish a scholarship fund as part of the college's current $230 million fund-raising campaign. Newman and Woodward were honorary co-chairs of a previous campaign.[36]
Newman was one of the founders of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), a membership organization of CEOs and corporate chairpersons committed to raising the level and quality of global corporate philanthropy. Founded in 1999 by Newman and a few leading CEOs, CECP has grown to include more than 175 members and, through annual executive convenings, extensive benchmarking research, and best practice publications, leads the business community in developing sustainable and strategic community partnerships through philanthropy.[37] Newman was named the Most Generous Celebrity of 2008 by Givingback.org. He contributed $20,857,000 for the year of 2008 to the Newman's Own Foundation, which distributes funds to a variety of charities.[38]
Upon Newman's death, the Italian newspaper (a "semi-official" paper of the Holy See) L'Osservatore Romano published a notice lauding Newman's philanthropy. It also commented that "Newman was a generous heart, an actor of a dignity and style rare in Hollywood quarters."[39]
Newman is recognized as responsible for preserving lands around Westport, Connecticut. He lobbied the state's governor for funds for the 2011 Aspetuck Land Trust in Easton.[40] In 2011 Paul Newman's estate gifted land to Westport to be managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust.[41]
[7]
What happened to Sean Penn after that whole El Chapo photo? What's that mofo up to these days?
Pitt is cool for doing this, and not being an attention whore like any other celebrity would have.
I didn't think Travolta would want cameras following him around...
Travolta is too busy working on that hairline, facelift bullshit. Turns 62 next week ...
to bad it will be the hood within 5 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalen_Rose#Philanthropy
Philanthropy
Jalen has personally donated more than $1.3 million through his foundation to support life-changing opportunities for underserved youth through the development of unique programs and the distribution of grants to qualified nonprofit organizations.
Jalen’s most substantial outreach initiative to date is the establishment of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy (JRLA). The Academy opened its doors in September 2011 and is an open enrollment, tuition free, public charter high school on the Northwest side of Detroit. The Academy currently serves over 400 ninth through twelfth grade scholars and will host its first graduating class in June 2015. The mission is to provide a leadership-focused experience within a high-performing high school that engages and inspires Detroit area youth to achieve at the rigorous level necessary to ultimately graduate with a college degree and thrive in life. Jalen is the founder of JRLA and serves as the President of the Board of Directors.[13]
Recently, the Detroit News recognized Jalen with the prestigious Michiganian of the Year Award in recognition of his excellence, courage and philanthropy to uplift not only the metropolitan area but all of Michigan. In a movement to transform public education, Jalen joins Michelle Rhee on the StudentsFirst Board of Directors and is an Ambassador for the American Federation for Children. In recent years Rose has become a community activist and a contributing editor of the Huffington Post.[14]
Philanthropy
Jalen has personally donated more than $1.3 million through his foundation to support life-changing opportunities for underserved youth through the development of unique programs and the distribution of grants to qualified nonprofit organizations.
Jalen’s most substantial outreach initiative to date is the establishment of the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy (JRLA). The Academy opened its doors in September 2011 and is an open enrollment, tuition free, public charter high school on the Northwest side of Detroit. The Academy currently serves over 400 ninth through twelfth grade scholars and will host its first graduating class in June 2015. The mission is to provide a leadership-focused experience within a high-performing high school that engages and inspires Detroit area youth to achieve at the rigorous level necessary to ultimately graduate with a college degree and thrive in life. Jalen is the founder of JRLA and serves as the President of the Board of Directors.[13]
Recently, the Detroit News recognized Jalen with the prestigious Michiganian of the Year Award in recognition of his excellence, courage and philanthropy to uplift not only the metropolitan area but all of Michigan. In a movement to transform public education, Jalen joins Michelle Rhee on the StudentsFirst Board of Directors and is an Ambassador for the American Federation for Children. In recent years Rose has become a community activist and a contributing editor of the Huffington Post.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Bullock#Philanthropy
Philanthropy
Bullock has been a public supporter of the American Red Cross, having donated $1 million to the organization at least four times. Her first public donation of that amount was to the Red Cross's Liberty Disaster Relief Fund. Three years later, she sent money in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.[120] In 2010, she donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti following the Haiti earthquake, and again donated the same amount following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[121]
Along with other stars, Bullock did a public service announcement urging people to sign a petition for clean-up efforts of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.[122] Bullock backs the Texas non-profit organization The Kindred Life Foundation, Inc., and in late 2008 joined other top celebrities in supporting the work of KLF's founder and CEO Amos Ramirez. At a fundraising gala for the organization, Bullock said, "Amos has led many efforts across our nation that have helped families that are in need. Our country needs more organizations that are committed to the service that Kindred Life is."[123]
In 2012, Bullock was inducted into the Warren Easton Hall of Fame for her donations to charities, and in 2013 was honored with the Favorite Humanitarian Award at the 2013 People's Choice Awards for her contributions to New Orleans' Warren Easton Charter High School, which was severely damaged by 2005's Hurricane Katrina.[124][125]
Philanthropy
Bullock has been a public supporter of the American Red Cross, having donated $1 million to the organization at least four times. Her first public donation of that amount was to the Red Cross's Liberty Disaster Relief Fund. Three years later, she sent money in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.[120] In 2010, she donated $1 million to relief efforts in Haiti following the Haiti earthquake, and again donated the same amount following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[121]
Along with other stars, Bullock did a public service announcement urging people to sign a petition for clean-up efforts of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.[122] Bullock backs the Texas non-profit organization The Kindred Life Foundation, Inc., and in late 2008 joined other top celebrities in supporting the work of KLF's founder and CEO Amos Ramirez. At a fundraising gala for the organization, Bullock said, "Amos has led many efforts across our nation that have helped families that are in need. Our country needs more organizations that are committed to the service that Kindred Life is."[123]
In 2012, Bullock was inducted into the Warren Easton Hall of Fame for her donations to charities, and in 2013 was honored with the Favorite Humanitarian Award at the 2013 People's Choice Awards for her contributions to New Orleans' Warren Easton Charter High School, which was severely damaged by 2005's Hurricane Katrina.[124][125]
The man is a Saint.
Singlehandedly rebuilding the Lower 9th ward.
Singlehandedly rebuilding the Lower 9th ward.
Probably, if you move a bunch of poor people in the neighborhood and they don't have much education it will happen
Props to Ten for the update on Jolie & Pitt.
http://www.bgol.us/forum/index.php?...s-break-up-now-angelinajolie-bradpitt.914997/
http://www.bgol.us/forum/index.php?...s-break-up-now-angelinajolie-bradpitt.914997/
Full credit to D. Cashmere for the update -
https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/b...ter-katrina-now-theyre-falling-apart.1017630/
https://www.bgol.us/forum/threads/b...ter-katrina-now-theyre-falling-apart.1017630/
NEW ORLEANS — Kamaria Allen had no plans to return to the Lower 9th Ward after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. But then she saw the new houses.
Billed as flood-safe and futuristic, the Make It Right homes towered over vacant lots in pops of teal, lemon and lavender. Houses like that just didn’t exist in the working-class, mostly black section of New Orleans that Allen’s family had called home for four generations — and definitely not for $130,000.
“I called it my Mardi Gras float,” Allen says of 1826 Reynes Street, the roof deck-topped home that now sits abandoned — mushrooms growing from its split siding, wooden boards propping up its sagging roof. Allen bought the house in 2011 from the Make It Right Foundation, a charity formed by Brad Pitt to help Lower 9th Ward residents return home after the hurricane.
Make It Right’s mission was to build 150 well-designed, green, affordable homes in the Lower 9th Ward, the area hardest hit by Katrina. As of 2016, the group reported spending $26.8 million building 109 homes, fueling the most visible recovery effort in an area still reeling from the storm.
But Allen and 11 other residents who spoke to NBC News, 10 of them on the record, say that many of the Make It Right homes are rotting and dangerous. They complain of mold and collapsing structures, electrical fires and gas leaks. They say the houses were built too quickly, with low-quality materials, and that the designs didn’t take into account New Orleans’ humid, rainy climate.
“This has been years of ongoing lies and broken promises,” Allen said in a recent interview in which she detailed Make It Right’s pledges and failures to repair her home.
As the problems worsened, the organization has all but disappeared. Make It Right hasn’t built a home, filed tax forms or updated its website since 2015. The downtown New Orleans office has been closed, the staff has been cut to a handful and residents say their calls go unreturned. While Pitt ordered inspections for the homes in 2016, according to a spokesperson, residents say they’re still waiting for the results and for much-needed repairs.
Linda Jackson, a longtime resident and founder of the Lower 9th Ward Homeowners Association, a group that advocates affordable homeownership and resident-driven redevelopment, said the majority of Make It Right’s homes are now vacant. “It’s just not working out,” she said.
Some residents have stayed quiet about the problems out of loyalty to a star actor who brought attention to the need to rebuild, while others have been silenced by nondisclosure agreements that Pitt’s foundation required them to sign in exchange for settlements or repairs. But residents are growing increasingly frustrated — and vocal. Last week, two residents sued Pitt and Make It Right, accusing the organization of breach of contract and fraud for selling them “defectively and improperly constructed" homes.
A spokesperson for Pitt declined to comment on the lawsuit but released the following statement on Pitt’s behalf in response to questions from NBC News: “We began an extensive review of homes just after the tenth anniversary of Katrina. Thanks to the dedication of the MIR team, we have been coordinating repairs of homes experiencing problems since early 2018 and I have total faith in our team on the ground to see this through.
“I made a promise to the folks of the Lower Ninth to help them rebuild — it is a promise I intend to keep.”
Make It Right’s corporate headquarters and last known board members did not return calls for comment.
‘THEY’RE STRINGING PEOPLE ALONG’
Allen, 35, moved into her gray, two-story Make It Right house on stilts in October 2011. Within weeks, she said she noticed cream-colored mushrooms popping up from her bedroom walls and kitchen outlets. Photos from that winter show mold creeping on her carpets and the mushrooms protruding from wood rotting under the siding. By 2012, Allen, who works from home as a health insurance administrator, said she began having headaches and felt tired all the time, symptoms reflected in a doctor’s note from August 2012.
An August 2012 report from Barclay Assessment Services, an environmental inspection company hired by Make It Right, found mold in the home’s kitchen cabinet, according to a copy of the report Allen provided to NBC News. The report also found elevated levels of basidiospores in the air, a product of fungus that “are often associated with advance mold rot caused by a chronic moisture condition,” according to the report.
Allen said she tried dozens of times to get her dream home repaired. She said Make It Right initially made minor repairs like caulking holes or adding tile, but for the major issues like mold remediation or structural repairs, the nonprofit was unresponsive, she said.
In 2012, Allen moved out. Make It Right paid her a cash settlement the following year — reimbursing her for the down payment and a year of mortgage payments — and in exchange Allen signed a nondisclosure form, promising not to make any written or verbal statements critical of Make It Right, according to documents seen by NBC News. Allen broke this agreement to speak to NBC News and to bring attention to other homeowners whose problems, she said, have been ignored by Make it Right.
That includes her parents. When Allen fled her home, she moved in with them and her brother — in a home a few streets away, also built by Make It Right.
Allen said her parents’ home hasn’t fared any better. Wood on the porch and wheelchair-lift is rotting, the stairway railing gave way under her mother and an inspector hired by Allen reported mold and improper ventilation, which Allen believes is making her and her family sick.
Allen’s father, Keith, 63, quit his job as a yacht builder in 2013 after a mysterious illness brought on near-constant tremors, which made it a struggle for him to open water bottles and button shirts. Her mother, Sharon, 65, has trouble breathing and suffers from frequent respiratory infections, and her brother Khalid, 20, has been in and out of the hospital in the last few years for issues including muscle tremors, impaired speech, breathing problems and memory loss. The family believes the symptoms are connected to the mold, and they say doctors have told them to leave the house, but they cannot afford to unless Make It Right buys it back.
In an October 2014 letter shown to NBC News, Dr. Patrice Evers of the Tulane Lakeside Pediatric Clinic, who had treated Khalid, wrote that his symptoms, including memory problems and insomnia, could be related to mold in the house. In a July 2015 letter, Dr. Sara E. Fernandez of Ochsner Center for Primary Care and Wellness wrote that Sharon Allen’s breathing symptoms occurred during exposure to “excessive” mold and carbon dioxide in her home.
Allen said Make It Right has stopped returning her family’s phone calls.
“The organization does not build safe homes,” Allen wrote to Make it Right in 2015, a letter that she says received no reply. “It is a fool’s paradise.”
Problems like those of the Allens led attorney Ron Austin to sue Pitt and Make It Right on Sept. 7. The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, alleges that Make It Right had identified a number of issues related to the building materials and the homes’ design that required significant repair, but the organization never alerted homeowners. The Allens are not part of the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of two other Make It Right residents, Lloyd Francis and Jennifer Decuir.
“The problem is that they’re stringing people along because they’re making promises that they’ll fix things, and they never do,” Austin said before the lawsuit was filed. “Folks are getting sicker and houses are breaking down every day.”
AN AMBITIOUS PLAN
In April 2006, eight months after New Orleans’ levees broke and flooded the city, nearly all of the residents of the devastated Lower 9th Ward were still displaced. Some were still searching for the dead amid the wreckage when Pitt announced his plan to help rebuild the area.
Big-name architects including Frank Gehry and Shigeru Ban donated original designs for modern, innovative homes, and Pitt raised millions of dollars at star-studded Make It Right galas to fund their construction by local builders. Dozens of inspired, if inexperienced, staffers were brought in to work for the organization, according to two former staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing nondisclosure agreements required by the foundation, which were viewed by NBC News.
The goal was ambitious. “You may have heard the adage: You can have it fast, cheap or well-made. Pick two,” the organization’s executive director at the time, Tom Darden, said in a 2010 speech about the nonprofit’s early efforts. Darden, the son of a North Carolina equity fund manager, was a recent college graduate when he volunteered to help Pitt after Katrina and was eventually chosen to lead the organization.
“Well, Brad Pitt is a tough boss,” Darden said in the 2010 speech at the PopTech conference, posted on YouTube in 2011. “He said that we had to build houses that were safe, affordable, green, adaptive, durable, designed by award-winning architects, designed around residents’ needs.”
“Absolutely no compromises,” Darden said at the time. He declined to comment recently when reached by NBC News.
THE PROBLEMS WITH THE HOUSES
But along with new homeowners — first displaced residents and then, because of a lack of buyers, teachers and first responders — the compromises came, according to the two former Make It Right employees and the lawsuit against Make It Right.
Make It Right built the houses using “defective, inappropriate and/or insufficient materials,” the recent lawsuit alleged.
And it quickly became clear to residents that a few of the all-star designs — sent from architects as far away as Ghana, Chile and Japan — weren’t going to work in Louisiana. The roofs on more than a dozen houses were flat — a red flag for locals.
“There was no way I was going to buy a flat-roofed house,” said Sean LeBeouf, a police officer who lives with his wife in a Make It Right house, which has a slanted roof. “In Louisiana, that’s just ridiculous. Look around, and there are no flat-roofed houses because of how much rain we get.”
Constance Fowler, a Make It Right homeowner and local activist, has counted 18 homes with flat roofs that Make It Right later redid to add a slant. The organization has also replaced rotting decks on at least 36 of the 109 homes since 2008, according to a lawsuit Make It Right filed against a lumber manufacturer. Make It Right chose TimberSIL because it advertised sustainable wood that was not treated with chemicals, but the lumber rotted in the Louisiana climate, according to the suit.
GROWING FRUSTRATION
Brittany West lived in one of the flat-roof houses — a buttermilk-yellow rectangle hugged by a front porch.
She moved in in 2011 with her husband and three daughters, and after one of the first rainfalls, she said she noticed water pouring in under the door. Make It Right fixed the leak, she said, but water kept seeping into the walls whenever it rained. By 2012, West said she was getting near-constant migraines, which she now attributes to mold.
Over the next three years, West said she called Make It Right every few months to complain. Each time, Make It Right employees came to take pictures of the damage and took notes, she said, only to leave the organization before following through.
“Someone's not telling me what’s wrong and I have small children,” West said she remembers thinking.
Worried for her family’s health, West left the home in 2015 and moved in with her sister in Georgia, where she said her migraines stopped.
In June, as neighbors’ complaints and building code violations piled up, the home was demolished. On the demolition permit application, under the reason the property was being demolished, the contractor hired by Make It Right wrote, “Blighted property.”
Reginald Moliere, West’s uncle and the home’s owner, said Make It Right told him it intends to rebuild.
“Eventually they said they’re going to scrap it and start over,” he said, “but they didn’t give me a date or timeline.”
‘A SKELETON CREW’
By 2016, as homeowner concerns piled up, Darden quietly left as Make It Right’s CEO, and the staff was slashed to six — including two lawyers, according to former employees and the website’s staff page. Last year, Make It Right closed its headquarters in downtown New Orleans and moved into a trailer in the Lower 9th Ward, residents said. The current chief operating officer and only executive, James Mazzuto, joined the organization as an intern in 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile and a previous version of the Make It Right site.
“They used to have dozens of people, but for the last two-and-a-half years it’s been a skeleton crew that you can’t even get hold of,” said Thomas Pepper, executive director of Common Ground Relief, a group of locals who organized to help with rescues and eventually rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina and worked alongside Make It Right. “They don’t answer phone calls. They don’t answer emails. It’s crazy.”
One of the remaining people working with Make It Right is John C. Williams, the organization’s executive architect, who turned the original house designs into blueprints.
Building houses isn’t easy in the Lower 9th Ward, Williams told NBC News, citing rain, moisture, and a lack of bedrock as particular challenges. “We’re basically on Jell-O,” Williams said.
Williams, who is not on the staff at Make It Right and does not work for the organization full-time, said homeowners were partly to blame for the problems with the houses, because they did not always notify Make It Right immediately about the need for repairs. “Maybe the occupants weren’t aware so they didn’t bring it up,” Williams said, since mold is not always visible. Others, he said, made quick fixes like putting pots under leaky ceilings, increasing the damage.
“It is what it is, and it’s going to take a lot more time to recover in that neighborhood,” he said.
Williams called the project an experiment and said, “Sometimes when you experiment, you’ve got to be flexible.”
According to Williams’ count, there are “about a dozen” houses that still need work — pitching flat roofs and sealing the edges where leaks come in — and he’s willing to do it. “I helped create it so I’m responsible,” he said. “That means I’m going to track them down and make it right.” He’s currently busy on other projects and said he plans to start the work in October.
Meanwhile, some Make It Right homeowners are holding onto the hope that Pitt will return and save the project.
“I know that they did not create the organization to hurt us,” Allen said. “But the fact is is that it happened. Even though you don't mean to do something bad, but something bad still happens, you need to be held accountable.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna908651
Thanks H Funk
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