Angelina Jolie donates $1 million to help underprivileged children affected by coronavirus school shutdowns
Angelina Jolie has donated $1 million to an organization to keep underprivileged children from going hungry amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Over 400,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 18,000 have lost their lives globally. In the US, it has also barred approximately 22 million underprivileged children from school meals, their only source of food, as the schools are closed due to the deadly virus.
Jolie's humanitarian aid to No Kid Hungry, a national campaign to end child hunger in the USA, aims at providing meals for children from low-income families.
“As of this week, over a billion children are out of school worldwide because of closures linked to coronavirus. Many children depend on the care and nutrition they receive during school hours, including nearly 22 million children in America who rely on food support. No Kid Hungry is making resolute efforts to reach as many of those children as possible,” the Academy Award-winning actor said in a statement.
Share Our Strength, the organization behind No Kid Hungry, has also announced that in the past week, along with Jolie, tens of thousands of Americans have raised awareness and donated funds on behalf of the children who rely on school for food. The organization added that so far it has already given $2 million to 78 organizations across 30 states to feed underprivileged children and their families.
“Over the past week, people from all walks of life have risen to the unprecedented challenge of feeding hungry kids during a global pandemic. I’ve heard stories of heart-breaking need and immense creativity, but above all persistence — a sense that we won’t let any barrier stand between a child and the healthy meals they need,” Billy Shore, founder and executive chair of Share Our Strength, said.
Besides, the 44-year-old humanitarian also co-wrote an essay on Time on Wednesday, March 25, promoting UNESCO's new Global Education Coalition, which seeks to provide remote education to children as schools across the globe are closed. The essay has insisted “vulnerable and disadvantaged children — including girls, the poor, the disabled and displaced learners — must be a particular priority."
“They are the children most likely to miss out on learning or suffer a decline in their health and nutrition and learning development. And they are most likely not to return to schools when these institutions reopen. Education should also be protected from future austerity cuts," the essay further reads.
It has also given a picture of the possible destruction that can happen due to the lack of education in hard times, as it says: “When schools shut down for more than a few weeks, early marriages increase, more children are recruited into militias, sexual exploitation of girls and young women rises, teenage pregnancies increase, and child labor rises. The converse is also true: education significantly improves not only the life prospects of individuals but the stability and prosperity of whole societies.”