Angelina Takes Zahara Home During U.N. Mission In Africa

Taking a beat from dominating the big screen and criss-crossing the world to promote their films, Brad and Angelina have been spending time in Africa, specifically Kenya. That's the usual for the philanthropy loving leading man and his leading lady –  but what makes this trip special? Last week, Mama Angelina snuck in a quiet trip to Ethiopia, the birthplace of daughter Zahara.

According to People.com, this is the first time Zahara has been to her native homeland since Jolie adopted her in 2005. The basis of the trip was to "keep up that culture" for Zahara. Jolie, who is a Goodwill Ambassador, traveled to Kenya to scout locations to build a TB and AIDS clinic in Zahara's name. Zahara is the second Jolie-Pitt kid to lend her name to improve conditions in her birth country. The couple's eldest child, Maddox Jolie-Pitt has an organization too. In his native Cambodia the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Project helps impoverished and ill children. 

Its was a busy week for Angelina. The previous Saturday, she spent the day visiting a dangerously crowded camp for Somali refugees. Called "The Dadaab camp," it sits on the Kenyan-Somali border. When it was opened in 1991 it only held 90,000 people. Today the population is now 285,000 growing by 7,000 people a month. Experts have predicted that a cholera outbreak expected to come with the rainy season started in October will only cause more discomfort and potentially death. Various reports says Jolie was stunned by the conditions within in the camp.

"I wish more people could meet them, then they would have a stronger desire to help." Jolie said in a statement through the UN.

"Children ran to greet her as she made her way to the new arrivals area, where she met a young women with three small children with distended stomachs and streaming noses who just reached the camp in Kenya after walking for days to flee Somalia, where half the population – or some 3.8 million people –are in need  of aid," said the UN.

Following her visit, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees stepped up its efforts by moving 12,000 refugees to the Kakuma camp in northern Kenya as an emergency measure for new arrivals.

Photo courtesy of Vancourerite.com.