United Nations Radio

Oscar winning actress Charlize Theron today became a new United Nations messenger for peace.

The 33-year old actress will focus on ending violence against women. UN Radio's Derrick Mbatha caught up with Ms. Theron, and first asked her reaction to being appointed.

CHARLIZE:I'm just really looking forward to the idea of working with this organization, working together with likeminded people, traveling more and doing more groundwork and really trying to spread a message internationally as far as the awareness of what's really happening to women and young girls all over the world. It was easier for me to start my work in South Africa being a South African and having access to the country and knowing the country.

DERRICK:Is violence against women a serious problem in South Africa?

CHARLIZE:I think it is. I think not only South Africa. I think there are a lot of countries affected by it. I think the African continent is highly affected by it. And I think what's exciting when I started 10 years ago working with the Rape Crisis Centre in Cape Town and started hearing just how high the numbers were of women who were sexually violated, I realized that nobody was really talking about it. It was an issue that was taboo. You just didn't talk about being a victim of rape, or being a victim of violence. And what was exciting 10 years ago for me was to start a very aggressive campaign where we could actually look at each other and say we can't continue to live in a country where this is a reality and we're not facing it and that there was almost this shame about it. And it's really great to see how women are talking about it now, and how people are talking about it. And I realize that the only way we're going to stop this is to constantly have a debate, a conversation about it, to let the world know what's happening but to also let people in South Africa know what's happening.

DERRICK:And you also do have this Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Tell me about this project?

CHARLIZE:It's a project I'm very excited about because I myself am from a very rural community and I realized that there was a lot of help provided in bigger cities in South Africa, or major cities in South Africa, but that the highest number of HIV and AIDS are actually found in rural communities. So I wanted to do something that could help some rural communities in South Africa and the most difficult part of that was not having infrastructure. So we came up with the great idea to build mobile clinics. And they're built to accommodate several aspects of changing lives, of bettering a community and a life. And we travel to rural schools, we service 13 schools now. We have three units--

DERRICK:This is all over South Africa or in certain cities?

CHARLIZE: This is in KwaZulu-Natal right now and we're trying to branch out. And we deliver education, sex education, HIV education. We try to provide social care, an environment where young girls and young boys feel they can openly discuss issues that they face every single day.

(duration: 3'56")