Angelina Jolie on Her Family and Getting Involved

In this weekends Parade, Angelina Jolie talked about juggling her family and career, the death of her mother, being an American, and how we can help make the world better.

On juggling kids and work:
"Brad and I are very lucky that we’re in a situation where we can choose to take turns, and one of us can be home with the kids, and so we kind of have that plan of who is doing what. So I have been home, and now I am going to go to work for a little bit, then he is going to work, then I am going to work, then basically we’re going to try to take a year off and just be with the kids. So certainly, we’re trying to find a few projects that we love or that we think would be good to do for one reason or another. But mainly our focus is, 'OK, let’s look at our schedule, and try to figure out when we’re going to have our family time.'"

On what it means to be an American:
"I think these days there’s been this wrong opinion that to be conscious and thoughtful of the rest of the world is not to be supportive of America. I think it is the core of what it is to be American. It’s why I’m proud to be American."

On how we can all get involved:
"My advice for [those who want to help in the world]: People have the Internet, they have access to magazines, newspapers from other countries, they have access to human rights Web sites, U.N. Web sites, all kinds of discussions on many different things—justice, aid abroad, volunteer vacations. There are many things to explore.

I think the first step is to try to navigate your way through some of that and see where your heart goes. That’s a big part of it. I do think it has to be personal. It has to be strong for it to last and grow, and then it will be a pleasure to work hard to do it.

I know people who now work in Washington, very high-powered jobs, who simply started as young people who decided they would just GET to different countries, and say, 'I’ve got a pair of hands, and I’ll help—does anybody need me?' There is a lot to be said for that. If you investigate, there are a lot of volunteer organizations, a lot of NGOs [non-governmental organizations], a lot of religious groups. But first I do think that there is something to knowing who you are and where your heart goes and what you feel you can contribute."

On her involvement with AIDS orphans:
"A few months ago, we wanted to make a donation to AIDS orphans, to their education, to their well-being, to their survival, and we found that there wasn’t a main organization. There were some, but they were focused in different areas. Then we realized that there were no people lobbying for AIDS orphans, because they are not there to lobby for themselves. So we started a program where we would hire people and collect different lobbyists who had worked on different issues, to fight for THAT issue, to fight on behalf of the kids."

Source: Parade