Jolie, Pitt donate $2M for Ethiopian clinic

updated 1:45 p.m. ET Sept. 15, 2008

NEW YORK - Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are giving back to the country where their 3-year-old daughter Zahara was born.

The couple have donated $2 million to help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia, said the Global Health Committee, which announced the donation by the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

The organization will use the money to build a center in the capital city of Addis Ababa for children affected by the disease and establish a program to treat tuberculosis in children and adults. The center will be named for Zahara.

The World Health Organization estimates that the African nation has 1.7 million people infected with HIV and 6,000 people infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis.

“It is our hope when Zahara is older she will take responsibility of the clinic and continue its mission,” Pitt, 44, said in a statement.

The couple worked with the Global Health Committee to open the Maddox Chivan Children’s Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, named after their oldest son, 7-year-old Maddox, who was adopted from Cambodia. Since February 2006, the center has provided medical treatment, education and social services to children affected by HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

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“Our goal is to transfer the success we have had in Cambodia to Ethiopia, where people are needlessly dying of tuberculosis, a curable disease, and HIV/AIDS, a treatable disease,” Jolie, 33, said in a statement Saturday.

The couple’s 4-year-old son Pax was adopted from Vietnam. The couple are also the parents of 2-year-old Shiloh and twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, who were born in July.

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