Issue Date: September 7, 2008
Ashley Judd: "Volunteering is spiritually rewarding."
Ashley Judd wants to change the world by using her celebrity to call attention to the world's injustices.
For six years, Judd, 40, has served as global ambassador with YouthAIDS for Population Services International (PSI), a non-profit that runs health empowerment programs in 60-plus countries. She has traveled to 13 countries, most recently, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Volunteer work has revolutionized my life," Judd says. "It has, in the best possible, most dramatic and rewarding way, turned my life inside out and upside down."
Judd, who grew up in small-town Kentucky and Tennessee, says she has always had the desire to help others. But her interest in volunteering abroad piqued when friends, including Bono, educated her on needs around the world, and PSI asked her to get involved around the same time.
"Volunteering in other countries is spiritually rewarding because it demonstrated to me in such a profound way that the things we think make us different are illusions," Judd says. "I can't imagine a better way to see the world than by doing service work."
She urges all people to help others by volunteering on Make A Difference Day and all year long through non-profits, which she says fill a critical gap between what governments and the private sector do.
-- Kathy Rowings
For more information about Ashley Judd's efforts, go to youthaids.org.
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Enter your photo. Win a volunteer vacation!
If, like Ashley Judd, you want to combine your love of travel with your desire to change the world, here's your chance. For the second year, Travelocity is sponsoring a "Picture a Better World" contest for USA WEEKEND's Make A Difference Day.
While you're helping your community on Make A Difference Day, document your good deeds with photos. Send in one photo you've snapped of your Oct. 25 action. If it's selected as best, you'll win a volunteer vacation to the destination of your choice through Travelocity's Travel for Good program (restrictions apply).
Some of the choices include working in a Russian orphanage, providing AIDS and HIV education to women and children in Tanzania and helping to save cheetahs from extinction in Namibia.
Make A Difference Day Photo Contest: Travel for good
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