UNICEF goodwill ambassador Jessica Lange arrives on first mission

US actress Jessica Lange arrived on Wednesday in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on her first mission as a goodwill ambassador for the UN Children's Fund. She was due to travel on Thursday to Bunia, the main town of the embattled district of Ituri, and on Friday to Bukavu before leaving the country the following day. According to UNICEF, Lange's mission would focus primarily on childhood vaccination, demobilised child soldiers, and sexual violence against women and its transmission of HIV/AIDS. She was also due to meet with families displaced by conflict and organisers of national vaccination programmes, and to visit hospitals, centres for demobilised child soldiers, and centres for the prevention of mother/child transmission of HIV/AIDS. Lange, who began her career as a fashion model before moving into acting, was the first actress to receive two Oscar nominations in a single year, for her 1982 roles in the movies "Frances" and "Tootsie". Over the next decade, Lange received best actress nominations three more times for "Sweet Dreams" and "The Music Box", before winning the Oscar for her role as a mentally unstable military wife in "Blue Sky" in 1994.