Skills : Practise listening skills by watching a film; broaden knowledge about International Organisations.

BEYOND BORDERS – Pre-Watching Activities

Beyond Borders is a 2003 romantic-drama film about aid

workers(1), directed by (2) Martin Campbell and starring
Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen. The original music score
was composed by James Horner.

Although it reflected Jolie's real-life interest(3) in

promoting humanitarian relief (4), the film was critically
and financially unsuccessful. The film was marketed with
the tagline "In a place she didn't belong, among people
she never knew, she found a way to make a
difference."(5)

Concurrently with the release of the film, Jolie published

Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries
from her real-life experiences as a Goodwill Ambassador
(6) for the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Borders

1:24 – Sarah’s speech

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel very nervous to be standing in front of you tonight. I also feel
very honoured in particular because UNHCR was the organization to which I was first
introduced by my friend Elliot Hauser. I know that my being offered this place would have
given him enormous pleasure. Over 50 million people are refugees or displaced persons in the
world today. And because of close minds and funding shortfalls, we are only able to reach
half of those in need. So we rely in our partners. The aid groups in El Salvador, Angola,
Chechnya, Sri Lanka… Those NGOs, the non-governmental groups, from Oxfam right down to
the smallest outfits run by people like Elliot and… And I pray for those who survive of him,
who continue his work without certainty or security, wherever they may be in this world.

1- WRITING TASK: Read both texts and write a text (180/200 words) about your own
opinion about NGOs and about the three scenarios that you’ve watched on the
movie.