Angelina Jolie’s Cambodia Charity Headquarters Criticized For Squalid Conditions
Actor Angelina Jolie has long had a connection to Cambodia, keeping a home there which is said to be the headquarters of her nonprofit charity, the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which helps the poor and needy of the struggling country.
The Daily Mail reports that Mounh Sarath, who oversaw the daily operations of the MJP Foundation for five years, says that Jolie never stays overnight as there is no running water anywhere on the property. He adds that she flies in an out on a helicopter and stays elsewhere as the conditions are Spartan.
Now, a handbook which is used on-site by volunteers and representatives from the NHS reveals that instead of being a rural retreat, it provides very basic needs. The food provided to staff consists of white rice only, and there is a ban on sexual contact on the property.
The Thames Valley and Wessex NHS Leadership Academy send two health specialists for “six-month placements every year to work with MJP.” The entire compound has no running water, limited electricity, and provides basic nutrition needs, according to the handbook provided to the NHS.
The accommodations are described as thatched buildings, and people will likely be expected to share sleeping quarters.
NHS spends ??1m sending medics to Angelina Jolie's Cambodia charity https://t.co/x1hphHGSgh via @MailOnline
— ???? ???? ????? (@Ebn6vHRRXgJzEFC) May 2, 2019
The bathing area is described as unisex, adding that cold water is refreshing.
“Wash facilities are unisex and located separately from the bedrooms. There is no piped water so showers are taken by pouring a ladle of cold water over oneself. It’s quite refreshing!”
They admit that the white rice can become “monotonous” and so they advise that people stock up on spices and other things in the town of Battambang. Electricity can be accessed for four hours in the evening in town in Samlaut. Workers have access to motorbikes but are told to beware of land mines and snakes.
NHS volunteers are warned that it is MJP Foundation policy that sex is forbidden on-site and in town.
“It is MJP policy that no MJP worker engages in sexual activity of any kind around Samlaut or Battambang. Delegates are expected to comply with this policy.”
Angelina Jolie has spoken at length of the property in the press and says that she spends so much time there with her children that it feels like a second home, but Sarath says that this isn’t true.
“She only lives there during the day, then flies out at night by helicopter. She just wanted the land. She loved the waterfall, she loved the compound. She would say: ‘I loooove this project.”’
The NHS has also been questioned recently in reference to why they continue to spend over $1 million annually to send people to Jolie’s charity while continuing to cut services to U.K. hospitals, says The Daily Mail.
