"Travelers looking to do good during their vacations while relaxing on the beach with margaritas should be careful about where they travel, actress Alyssa Milano said Saturday at the L.A. Times Travel Show.
"The scariest thing is going to a resort, and the corrupt government not using any of that tourism money to help the educational system," Milano said during a conversation with Times columnist Patt Morrison.
Milano, a die-hard Dodgers fan raised in New York to a family of Italian heritage, noted she has never visited Italy. Most of the trips the 41-year-old actress and UNICEF ambassador has taken have been work-related. None has led her to one of the world's most popular tourist destinations. "I know it seems crazy," Milano said. "I'll get there obviously. It just hasn't taken priority yet."
Instead, trips have taken her to places such as the African nation of Angola where bullet holes decorated her hotel, and workers lying on their stomachs cleared sand mines with teaspoons. During a 2004 visit, she saw the country slowly grow from scratch after a long civil war. "The smell and the heat and the bugs -- it's very foreign," Milano said. "I don't think it's for everyone."
Though everyone may not visit Angola on an aid mission, everyone could find a way to be discerning consumers or generous donors to global charities, she said. Milano raised concern about what she described as a growing us-vs.-them mentality among Americans.
"In the last few years, there's somewhat of an animosity now that people have toward people helping kids in other countries," Milano said. "I think they all deserve the best opportunity." Milano's travels have tailed off because she's been caring for her toddler son Milo, but she plans to pick it up again. "And I'm going to take him with me," she said.
Milano was one of two featured speakers Saturday at the Travel Show. Guidebook author Arthur Frommer spoke earlier on the necessity to avoid high-priced hotels and overly kid-friendly trends in the bargain cruise industry.
The Travel Show continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday with keynote addresses by TV personality Adam Richman at noon and radio and TV host Henry Rollins at 2:30 p.m."
"Alyssa Milano is a big give-back girl. The actress known for TV shows "Charmed" and "Mistresses" has traveled to some of the darkest spots on the planet in her role as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.
"I've never been to Italy, never been to Paris, but I've been to Angola and Iraq," she said in a recent phone interview.
Milano will discuss why she goes and what she has learned from her fieldwork at the Los Angeles Times Travel Show at 3 p.m. Saturday. Meet her and other featured speakers Arthur Frommer, Adam Richman and Henry Rollins at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend.
Milano focuses her work on the health of mothers and children, with a heavy emphasis on stemming the spread of HIV and AIDS.
In 2010 her visit to the settlement of Kolonia in western Kosovo was "the hardest experience I've had on a field visit," she wrote in a blog post at the time. Milano witnessed poor living conditions, specifically a waste dump close to the settlement where children spent time looking for metal to sell or scavenging for food.
"To see people live in this kind of poverty is horrifying and unacceptable," she wrote.
Prior trips include a 2004 visit to Angola where she spoke with HIV-positive women and met with people disfigured by land mines as a result of the country's brutal civil war.
Two years later, she went to India after the deadly tsunami on a similar mission and met mothers who showed her their terrible living conditions after having been displaced from their homes.
These days, Milano stays closer to home as mom to toddler Milo. She remains active with UNICEF and also works to raise awareness of the health alliance the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Disease Control, which aims to wipe out bacterial and parasitic diseases worldwide.
"The value I take away from these trips is that we're all exactly the same," she said. "The only thing that's different are social issues.... We all want the same things for our children, we all struggle with the impoverished, the malnourished, people who don't get proper healthcare."
Actress calls on Congress to pass the PAST Act, which would prevent the soring of Tennessee walking horses
Longtime animal advocate and star of ABC’s Mistresses, Alyssa Milano, has sent an appeal to Congress to protect horses from abuse by swiftly passing the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R. 1518/S. 1406.
This legislation would amend the Horse Protection Act of 1970 to stop the grisly practice of inflicting pain to Tennessee walking horses through training techniques known as "soring".
The Humane Society of the United States also urges Congress to enact the PAST Act quickly.
“Through the use of caustic chemicals and abusive shoeing techniques that create constant pressure and pain, the horse is forced to perform an unnatural, exaggerated gait known as the ‘Big Lick.’ I am the proud owner of gaited horses and am writing to urge you to co-sponsor crucial legislation that will protect these vulnerable animals from a repugnant training practice.”
Keith Dane, vice president of equine protection for The HSUS, said: “The PAST Act would make urgently needed amendments to existing law to give the federal government the tools to more effectively crack down on soring. It is time for Congress to pay heed to the thousands of horse-lovers, veterinarians and organizations who want soring to finally be a thing of the past.”
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