March 25, 2022

CHISINAU/NEW YORK, March 25, 2022 – One month following war broke out in Ukraine, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom has traveled to Moldova to meet children and families fleeing Ukraine as refugees.

During her two-day stay, Bloom visited one of the “blue points” set up by UNICEF in Palanca, southwestern Moldova, where women and children go to rest and receive help as they cross the border from Ukraine in search of of security.

“I met a mother who had just arrived at the border crossing with her three young children. She told me that they had fled the Ukraine the night before following a bomb hit her neighbours’ house: they were too scared to stay there,” Bloom recounted. “It was heartbreaking to see this and other families arrive at the border following long journeys, loaded down with few belongings and not knowing their final destination.”

UNICEF and UNHCR, in collaboration with governments and civil society organizations, have installed three “blue points” on the most important refugee routes in Moldova. In these safe spaces, which serve as a stopover for families, important information is provided, the identification of unaccompanied and separated children is facilitated, and their protection from exploitation is guaranteed. In addition, it is a center for access to basic services.

Since the war began on February 24, more than 1.8 million children have fled Ukraine and tens of thousands have crossed into Moldova. Many refugees continue their journey to other countries, while nearly 100,000 (half of them children) have stayed in Moldova with host families and volunteers or in refugee centers set up by governments.

“The danger facing refugee children in Ukraine is very real and pressing and is growing every day. Those traveling alone are especially vulnerable to human trafficking and exploitation as they travel long and tortuous distances,” said Maha Damaj, UNICEF Representative in Moldova. “UNICEF is working around the clock in Moldova to provide psychosocial care and protection services to children and families who cross the border in search of safety.”

During her visit, Bloom also met with children and families at the Moldexpo refugee center in Chisinau, one of more than 100 centers in Moldova where families can sleep, find medical and legal information, and eat hot meals before to continue their travels.

At the center, Bloom met a family of five who had fled the Ukraine a few days earlier with the clothes on their backs and a small amount of money. After their arrival in Moldova and following five nights at Moldexpo, a local family had offered to host them until they had all the necessary documentation to continue.

“Many children and families I have spoken with have not only left behind their homes, but also their friends and family, their schools, and virtually all of their belongings. As a parent, I cannot imagine the pain and confusion they must feel,” added Bloom, who already visited eastern Ukraine with UNICEF in 2016. “The blue points set up by UNICEF at the borders are an essential first stop for mothers who They are desperate for respite, as well as a safe place where their children can play.”

UNICEF recently warned of the heightened risk of exploitation and human trafficking faced by millions of children fleeing war and many others who are on the move within Ukraine due to violence. In response, UNICEF and its partners are expanding “blue spots” in refugee-hosting countries, including Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, and are calling on governments in the region to put in place measures to protect refugees. to boys and girls. This includes tightening child protection checks at border crossings.

Halle Berry had almost written herself off.

It was a cold March night in Hollywood in 2002, and she was thrilled to have been nominated for her first Oscar, in the Best Actress category, for her role as a waitress who has an affair with her convicted husband’s executioner in the Marc Forster’s dark drama “The past condemns us”.

With rivals such as Nicole Kidman (“Moulin Rouge”), Judi Dench (“Iris”), Sissy Spacek (“The Unforgivable Crime”) and Renée Zellweger (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”), Berry was the seventh African-American actress nominated. A win would go down in history as the first black winner.

However, Berry never thought it would happen.

“In those days, if you didn’t win the Globe, you didn’t get the Oscar,” Berry, 55, said in a recent phone conversation, referring to the Golden Globe he had lost to Spacek. “So I had more or less resigned myself to believing this: ‘It’s great to be here, but I’m not going to win.'”

However, the then previous year’s winner, Russell Crowe, opened the envelope and read his name, and the camera zoomed in on his teary and surprised face. He took a moment to compose herself, and then headed onto the stage in her already iconic Elie Saab dress, a voluminous burgundy train trailing behind her, as the applause went on and on and on.

“My God”, were his first words when he finally had enough breath to speak, with tears still running down his cheeks and his hands shaking as he took the statuette. He had not prepared a speech. He didn’t have a list of people to thank either.

“I have no recollection of the moment,” Berry said. “I don’t even know how I got there. It was a moment of total blackout. The only thing I remember is Russell Crowe saying: ‘Breathe, friend’. And then I had a gold statue in my hand, and I just started talking.”

He dedicated the moment to Dorothy Dandridge, who in 1955 became the first African-American woman nominated for best actress (for “Carmen Jones”), and to previous African-American nominees such as Diahann Carroll and Angela Bassett.

“This moment is so much bigger than me,” Berry told the crowd, adding, “It’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color who now has a chance because a door has been opened tonight.”

At one point, he looked out onto the balcony and saw Sidney Poitier, who in 1964 became the first black man to win an Oscar for best actor, for “Lilies of the Valley,” and who was there that night to receive a honorary award.

“It was very special to have him there,” Berry said in an interview, weeks following he died in January at age 94. “He and Dorothy Dandridge allowed me to dream outside my own backyard and believe that a little black girl from Cleveland might do it.”

When the orchestra told him to finish following almost three minutes, he resisted.

“It’s been 74 years,” he said onstage, referring to all the ceremonies where a white actress had won the award. “I have to take this time.” (It would be a night of long speeches, which would become the longest Oscars in history, at 4 hours and 23 minutes.)

Moments later, the night was once more part of the history books: Denzel Washington became the second African-American man to win the award for best actor, for his role as a corrupt police officer in “Training Day”, turning the 2002 ceremony the first—and only—time the top two acting awards went to actors of color.

But in the twenty years since that night, only twelve other black performers have won an Oscar. Although two men — Jamie Foxx and Forest Whitaker — have joined the ranks of African-American best actor winners, no other black woman has been named best actress, and it took eight years following Berry’s win for another. black woman was even nominated in the category (Gabourey Sidibe for “Preciosa” in 2010).

“The door didn’t open,” Berry said. “The fact that there is no other winner is heartbreaking.”

Mia L. Mask, a film professor at Vassar College and author of “Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film,” said Berry’s win was especially notable because it came amid a shortage of quality roles for black men, and even more so for black women.

“For a woman of color to win, the movie has to be a good movie and satisfy the sensibilities of the members of the academy,” she explained. “AND the acting has to be good.”

Berry said that while she celebrated her historic win, she was determined not to let it change the types of roles she took on.

“You have to stay true to whatever got you there to get that award,” he said. “And for me, it was taking risks and doing things that were out of the ordinary.”

But, Berry stressed, the fact that no African-American has won the academy’s top acting award for women in the past two decades shouldn’t take anything away from women like Lena Waithe and Viola Davis, who are producing “wonderful, miraculous work.” ”.

“We can’t always judge success or progress by how many awards we have,” he said. “Awards are the icing on the cake, it’s your peers saying you were exceptionally excellent that year, but does that mean if we don’t get the exceptionally excellent nod, we weren’t great and we won’t succeed, and we’re not changing the world with our art, and our opportunities are not growing?

Even more important than the statuette in her bedroom, Berry said, is the work she has been able to do in the years since. She recently directed her first film, the mixed martial arts drama “Wound,” which began streaming on Netflix in November.

“Twenty years ago, would there have been a black woman directing a movie regarding the fighting genre?” he asked. “I don’t think she might have even considered that idea. That is proof to me that things are changing.”