Cate Blanchett Is The U.N.’s Newest Goodwill Ambassador

Cate Blanchett is joining the ranks of Angelina Jolie. The United Nations announced Monday that the actress will serve as its newest Goodwill Ambassador. She will help the U.N.'s refugee agency raise global awareness about the refugee crisis. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are roughly 15.1 million displaced people worldwide. That figure puts the crisis at its highest point in decades. "We are living through an unprecedented crisis, and there must be shared responsibility worldwide," Blanchett said in a statement reported by AFP. "It feels like we're at a fork in the road. Do we go down the compassionate path, or do we go down the path of intolerance?" The largest percentage of displaced people are in sub-Saharan Africa. There are also millions of refugees in Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, as well as thousands in the Americas, according to the U.N. AFP noted that Blanchett recently visited with Syrian refugee families in Jordan who were displaced by their home country's civil war. The UNHCR shared a video of Blanchett's trip to Jordan — hear some of the actress's conversations with Syrian refugees in the video below.