These are tough times and so often you want to help others but you either don’t know where to start, where to go or even how you can help. You may even be going through a hard time yourself and might reach out to an organization you may have been referred to or saw a commercial and reached out for help and got it. Later you find out that behind the scenes there was an actor or actress who helped make it all possible.
Actors earn a lot of money. Some may make public pronouncements of assistance but so many others do their charity or philanthropic work quietly behind the scenes. You’d be surprised at how many do humanitarian work and no one is the wiser.
Humanitarianism is the act of supporting those who are in extreme need, often in places affected by war and natural disasters by helping to provide shelter, food, water and, if necessary, protection from the forces of war. It also means taking on causes that aim to help a specific population without judgment and with humanity.
There is a long list of such actors and actresses and today we will acknowledge some of them.
- Actors
- Brad Pitt
Beloved actor Brad Pitt is among the most humanitarian actors in Hollywood. He supports over forty charities and foundations such as:
- Médecins Sans-Frontières (Doctors Without Borders): A charity of French origin which provides medical services and creates health-based projects in war zones and countries dealing with endemic diseases.
- Human Rights Watch: This is an organization whose goal is to protect the human rights of all people around the world. They work with victims and activists to fight discrimination, protect victims of inhuman conditions in wartime and help bring offenders of human rights to justice.
- The Make-A-Wish Foundation which makes the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions come true all while offering hope, strength, and joy.
- Leonardo DiCaprio
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation was created in 1998 after the colossal success of the film “Titanic”. The foundation is focused on protecting the Earth’s disappearing spaces where wild animals dwell. He has produced educational films dedicated to building relationships between humans and nature through grantmaking.
In 2021, the foundation was renamed Re:Wild.
- Actresses
- Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is well known as one of Hollywood’s busiest humanitarians. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassador, she founded the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children in 2005. Its purpose is to deliver young asylum seekers in the United States free legal aid and still fund it.
In addition, she created Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) with Microsoft in 2008. Its purpose is to fight for the rights of migrant and refugee children who are unaccompanied upon entering the US immigration system. - Emma Watson
Emma Watson doesn’t have a foundation but has done a lot of humanitarian work after her success in the Harry Potter films.
- In 2014, Emma was named as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and helped in the launch of the UN Women campaign for HeForShe. HeForShe advocates for gender equality and promotes women’s rights and political participation.
- In January 2016, Emma created the Goodreads Book Club, “Our Shared Shelf” with the goal of raising the subject of gender in equality via the discussion of scientific books and articles.
- Humanitarian Couples
- Jaime Gertz and Anthony Ressler
In 1997, actress Jaime Gertz and her husband Anthony Ressler, a co-founder of two private equity firms established the Ressler/Gertz Foundation. The foundation’s goal is to help encourage philanthropy and volunteerism. The couple has donated millions of dollars to the foundation whose goal is to promote philanthropy and volunteerism.
In the last few years, The Ressler/Gertz Foundation has made almost two hundred grants to more than one hundred organizations totaling $22 million.
Also, as owners of the Atlanta Hawks, the couple has invested copious amounts of cash geared to helping empower Atlanta’s Black community through their foundation.
In addition, they have also given grants to the LA County Museum of Art as well as Cedar Sinai Medical Center.
- George and Amal Clooney
Back in 2016, George Clooney and his wife, Amal, who is an international law practitioner, founded The Clooney Foundation for Justice. Its goal is to deliver free legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses in more than forty countries. How? They do this by guaranteeing that the offenders of the rights of women, journalists, survivors of war and mass atrocities, defenders of democracy, the LGBTQIA+ community and all minorities are made accountable.
The foundation continues to exert a lot of energy monitoring global trials in order to do this work.
- Bonus: The above-mentioned humanitarians are deserving of the Nobel Prize, which is named after a Swedish chemist and engineer named Alfred Nobel. The invention of dynamite is what he is most commonly known for.
He passed away in 1896. In his will, he stipulated all of his assets be used to create prizes in five fields: Chemistry, Physiology (Medicine), Literature, Physics and Peace. These came to be known as “Nobel Prizes”. In 1968, a sixth prize was added for Economic Sciences. Maybe a seventh should be added for Humanitarianism, don’t you think?
Humanitarian work is universal. What these actors and actresses have done and are doing is not only amazing but inspirational. Anyone can be a humanitarian. It can simply be the offering of a meal to a homeless person, doing volunteer work in your neighborhood or helping an immigrant family in your community find shelter.
Humanitarian work is for the good of all people.
