Cover Angelina Jolie charities and causes reflect her longstanding work in refugee rights, conservation, education and women’s rights, highlighted by her Philippines visit for the 2026 Asean Inclusive Growth Summit (Photo: Stefania D'Alessandro/Getty Images)
Angelina Jolie charities and causes reflect her longstanding work in refugee rights, conservation, education and women’s rights, highlighted by her Philippines visit for the 2026 Asean Inclusive Growth Summit (Photo: Stefania D'Alessandro/Getty Images)
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As she headlined the closing panel at the 2026 Asean Inclusive Growth Summit in Manila, a closer look at the humanitarian work, charities and causes Angelina Jolie has pursued for more than two decades
Angelina Jolie’s appearance at the 2026 Asean Inclusive Growth Summit in the Philippines is rooted in a story that began in Cambodia more than two decades ago. In November 2026, the Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian headlined the panel, From memory to possibility: Cambodia, courage and the power of staying, alongside Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh. The conversation reflects her longstanding connection to the region and a body of humanitarian work that has taken Jolie from Cambodian rainforests to refugee camps and Capitol Hill. As her Philippines visit draws attention, here are the causes and charities she has supported, including her longstanding work in Cambodia.
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Maddox Foundation: Angelina Jolie’s conservation and community work in Cambodia
Angelina Jolie’s philanthropy in Southeast Asia began in Cambodia, where she filmed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and adopted her son Maddox in 2002. The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, now often called the Maddox Foundation, followed in 2003. Based in Samlout, Battambang province, it partnered with Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment in 2006 to help protect a 60,994-hectare forest, about 150,720 acres, and backs local schools, clinics and clean water. Jolie says it has been 100 per cent locally led since its start, and its rangers removed about 4.8 miles of wire snares in 2025.
Women for Bees: how Angelina Jolie supports female beekeepers in Cambodia
Angelina Jolie is godmother of Women for Bees, a programme from Unesco and French cosmetics house Guerlain that trains women as beekeeper-entrepreneurs in Unesco biosphere reserves. In 2022, she launched a six-month training course in Cambodia, with apprentices identified by Unesco in collaboration with the Maddox Foundation, in Siem Reap, the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve and the Samlout district. Trainees learn about the country’s native honeybees and the importance of bees in Khmer history, pairing a livelihood for rural women with protection of the local environment.
UNHCR: Angelina Jolie’s two decades as a refugee advocate
Angelina Jolie’s work with refugees has been one of her most visible commitments. She served the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as a Goodwill Ambassador from 2001 to 2012, then as Special Envoy until 2022, carrying out more than 60 field missions to bear witness to displacement and call for urgent solutions. In December 2022, she announced she was stepping down, saying in a joint statement with the agency that she would take a different approach and engage directly with refugees and local organisations on a wider range of humanitarian and human rights issues.
Angelina Jolie Primary School: girls’ education in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp
In Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, Angelina Jolie funded and supported a girls’ boarding primary school that carries her name. UNHCR describes it as the camp’s only primary boarding school for girls and a protection tool as much as an academic centre. It opened with 150 girls and recorded an 86 per cent pass rate in a 2015 UNHCR report. Pupils have also learned computer programming, with one student telling UN Women the school was where she first used the internet.
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Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative: Angelina Jolie and William Hague’s campaign
In 2012, Angelina Jolie and then UK Foreign Secretary William Hague launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, a campaign to end sexual violence in conflict. Both spoke at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London in 2014. In February 2015, they launched the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics, which LSE describes as the UK’s first academic centre on the subject. The pair later served as visiting professors in practice there.
Violence Against Women Act: how Angelina Jolie lobbied the US Congress
Above Angelina Jolie speaks on the Violence Against Women Act at the US Capitol
Angelina Jolie spent months on Capitol Hill urging lawmakers to renew the Violence Against Women Act, lobbying in September and December 2021. In February 2022, she stood with a bipartisan group of senators, including Joni Ernst, Dianne Feinstein, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, as they announced a path forward for the long-lapsed law. She told them it would be one of the most important votes they cast that year. Congress reauthorised the act in 2022.
‘Know Your Rights and Claim Them’: Angelina Jolie’s guide to children’s rights
In 2021, Angelina Jolie teamed up with Amnesty International and human rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren, one of the original drafters of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, on Know Your Rights and Claim Them. Published in the UK in September 2021, the book explains child rights to under-18s and shows how young people can stand up for themselves and others. It carries cover praise from Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, and covers subjects such as privacy and peaceful protest.
Atelier Jolie: Angelina Jolie’s creative social enterprise in New York
Angelina Jolie opened Atelier Jolie at 57 Great Jones Street in New York in December 2023. The two-level space presents itself as a creative collective, giving customers a platform to collaborate with tailors, artisans and designers, with an atelier on the second floor and a retail space below. Eat Offbeat, a café, sits at the back. Atelier Jolie works as a social enterprise rather than a charity, but it shows how her advocacy has widened from aid and policy into creative collaboration.
Why did Angelina Jolie visit the Philippines?
Angelina Jolie arrived in Manila on November 10 as a featured speaker at the 2026 Asean Inclusive Growth Summit, held as the Philippines chairs Asean this year. On November 11, she joined Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh for the summit’s closing conversation, which reflected on Cambodia and Jolie’s more than two-decade connection to the country. That relationship began when she filmed Lara Croft: Tomb Raider there in 2000 and later grew into longstanding humanitarian and conservation work.
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After more than a decade in lifestyle media, Clifford has mastered the art of writing seriously about things that are fun—and writing fun things about people who take themselves very seriously. At Tatler Asia, he helped steer its flagship lists, Tatler’s Most Influential and Asia’s Most Stylish. And today, he leads T-Labs, Tatler Asia’s content innovation hub, where he continues the noble pursuit of lifestyle storytelling, spinning stories on wealth, entertainment, necessary style, Hallyu, Hollywood, beauty and more for audiences across Asia.
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