Actress, director and noted humanitarian Angelina Jolie just announced the opening of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics on February 10.
Starting in 2016, students will be able to enroll in a Masters of Science degree program at the school. They will study the brutality faced by women in war zones and work to combat it.
Jolie made the announcement with the British First Secretary of State William Hague. In 2012, Jolie and Hague started the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, which aims to bring perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.
In two new short films, Jolie tells the stories of refugees displaced by Isis violence in Iraq and Syria. She has worked as a special envoy of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees since 2012, and has been interested in humanitarian work since traveling to Cambodia in 2000 to film Tomb Raider.
Jolie spoke of her hopes for the Centre for Women, Peace and Security in a statement, saying, “I am excited at the thought of all the students in years to come who will study in this new Centre. There is no stable future for a world in which crimes committed against women go unpunished. We need the next generation of educated youth with inquisitive minds and fresh energy, who are willing not only to sit in the classroom but to go out into the field and the courtrooms and to make a decisive difference.”
This new program adds to the extensive list of Jolie’s many wide-ranging accomplishments, including everything from extensive humanitarian work to her various creative projects and to raising six children with her husband, Brad Pitt. She remains a inspiration to women everywhere.