Prince Harry, Britain’s royal soldier and humanitarian, would like to spend more time helping children in Africa.
The 23-year-old lieutenant, who was decorated for his service in Afghanistan, was in the African kingdom of Lesotho last week to work with Sentebale — the charity he and Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso founded in the memory of Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana.
Harry spoke with reporters recently about balancing his army life with his charity work.
“I wish I could be out here more often,” he said while visiting a newly opened center for abused children. “I do the most I can to come out here and see the kids.”
Harry and Seeiso founded Sentebale — which means “forget me not” in Sesotho — to help orphans and vulnerable children in a nation of 1.8 million people where about 300,000 children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.
The brightly colored Lesotho Child Counseling Unit is just one of a number of projects in which Sentebale is involved. Others include efforts to treat and educate about HIV/AIDS.
TEMPORARY HAVEN
The Child Counseling Unit — set on a hilltop outside Maseru — provides a temporary haven for up to 40 children who have been sexually or physically abused. It was started in 2002 by a child counselor who housed children in a shipping container at her home, but had to turn many away for lack of space and money.
Sentebale stepped in and built the new thatched-roof complex for about US$190,000, with help from Standard Lesotho Bank. Sentebale is partly funded through fundraising projects and donations.
Children stay for an average of three months, as the center seeks help from qualified counselors to enable them return to their lives and, where possible, their families. Most are girls aged from 18 months to the early teens.
KNOWLEDGE
At the shelter on Wednesday, Harry — the third in line to the British throne — greeted village elders with a traditional two-handed shake, showing respect for and knowledge of the cultural ways of Lesotho.
“For us it is a wonderful relationship,” said Paul Morolong, chairman of the shelter. “If possible we would keep him here.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS