George Clooney
When he accepted the Summit Peace Award in 2007 for his work in Sudan alongside fellow actor Don Cheadle, George Clooney said, "Don and I ... stand here before you as failures. The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur those people are not better off now than they were years ago." He may not have been able to solve the humanitarian crisis that resulted from the nation's 2003 civil war, but Clooney's years of work — including many visits to the region — to raise awareness for the people of Darfur and prompt international action is anything but a failure. Not long after his first visit in 2006, he spoke in the front the United Nations Security Council alongside Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel and urged forceful action. "We were brought up to believe that the UN was formed to ensure that the Holocaust could never happen again. ... How you deal with [Darfur] will be your legacy — your Rwanda, your Cambodia, your Auschwitz," he said.