At Bavinck School in The Hague Thursday morning, Princess Maxima of the Netherlands kicked-off a drive aimed at needy children in Third World countries. The project, Edukans Shoe buddies, focuses on school children filling their shoe boxes with toys and school supplies.
The program is meant to teach children to be aware of the fact that not every child in this world goes to school.
Princess Maxima handed over the first shoe to Edukans Director Kees de Jong. She told of filling the shoebox with her three young daughters who are also participating in the Shoe buddies. The first shoebox goes to Uganda.
Other countries benefiting from Edukans are Peru, India and many other African nations.
Edukans Shoe buddies has been around for 15 years and more than 2 million children have received shoeboxes from their Dutch peers.
Shortly after arriving in South Africa Wednesday, Sweden’s Princess Madeleine went to a reception in honor of World Childhood Foundation at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Cape Town.
All Over Press/Svensk Damtidining
Madeleine dressed beautifully as she always does for the dinner. She wore an olive gown with beige lace across the chest and on the tiny sleeves. To top it off, the Princess wore large gold earrings shaped like leaves.
She is expected to stay in South Africa until Friday before flying off to the United States for more work on behalf of WCF, which was started by her mother, Queen Silvia.
It is unknown how long the Princess will stay in the States. Her visit is not even mentioned in the royal calendar.
Many royal watchers believe Madeleine is getting more involved with WCF as a way to get past her break-up with former fiancé, Jonas Bergstrom.
Sweden’s Princess Madeleine is going to be a busy lady in the coming weeks. Tomorrow, she will fly to South Africa for projects related to World Childhood Foundation, which her mother, Queen Silvia set up to give children worldwide better lives.
Among the functions the Princess will be doing is attending a dinner meant to honor WCF in Cape Town.
Madeleine will also be filmed by German TV station, RTL, which will be a follow-up to a previous project they did on her and WCF.
This will be the Princess’ second trip to South Africa. In November 2008, she spent some time in the country both promoting and doing work for the charity. Madeleine visited shantytowns, getting a chance to see up close the poverty some children live in and how her mother’s foundation can help them.
But before leaving Sweden, Madeleine took part in another charity on Sunday. In Skansen in Stockholm, she was present for the 10th anniversary of Min Stora Dag, or My Big Day – a charity that grants wishes terminally ill children.
In the spirit of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Queen Rania announced Tuesday that they will cover the education expenses for 200 of their country’s orphans.
REUTERS/Ali Jarekji/FILE
The beneficiaries are part of the Al Aman Fund for the Future of Orphans. Those who will get their expenses paid for are the ones who have completed high school.
The King and Queen will pay for not only tuition but for accommodation, transport, books, stationery and medical insurance.
On Wednesday, Rania met with a group of seven orphans who will benefit from Al Aman. They thanked the Queen for the fund, and talked to her about the difficulties they face being orphans growing up in foster homes or orphanages.
Al Aman – which is Arabic for “security” – is a non-profit organization started by Queen Rania back in 2006. It gets its funds from private and corporate donations.
Since it began, over a thousand Jordanian orphans have benefited from Al Aman, with 300 of them graduating from high education institutions and establishing careers.
Those who are accepted by the fund have to be evaluated before being accepted.
These past two days saw Princes William and Harry of the U.K. finalize their trip to Botswana and head for the Kingdom of Lesotho. It is part of the brothers’ visit to southern Africa where they are checking in on how their charities are helping the region.
Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images
On Monday, Harry got a chance to see how local animals benefit from the Tusk Trust, which William is patron of. This time around, Harry showed his older brother how his charity, Sentebale, helps AIDS orphans in Lesotho.
As the royal brothers wrapped their Botswana stay, they stopped by a school in Maun. There, Prince William was shown a vuvuzela, a horn being used during the World Cup. Unfortunately, William had difficulty playing the instrument. Upon failing to hit a note, he said, “There you go, embarrassed myself again!”
Also in Maun, Prince William was shown around the Bio-boundry Lab at the Predator Conservation Trust. He was given a demonstration on the lab’s equipment which aims to help the animals on the conservation.
Later in the day, William and Harry left for Lesotho, a Kingdom that is completely surrounded by South Africa. Like their ancient ancestors, they entered the country on horseback, arriving in the village of Semongkong, and were greeted by ululating women and shepherd boys.
Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images
While in Semongkong, the brothers – along with Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso, the youngest son of King Letsie – visited a school and spent the day with its students.
Harry’s charity, Sentebale, helps the local boys here by opening schools that would teach them basic education, social skills and how to avoid AIDS. This area of Lesotho has young boys as young as eight year-old walking miles to the nearest school after spending the day tending herds. Sometimes, they board at the school in substandard conditions. When they return to their villages as 18 year-olds, after spending years being sexually abused by older boys, the young men become abusers themselves. Sentebale aims to prevent that.
“It’s the main thing to do”, said Harry, according to the Daily Telegraph.
“They’re herd boys from aged eight to 18 then they come back at 18 with no education, no social skills. All they want to do is…”, he added, pointing to his groin.
The three Princes spent the day listening to the boys’ stories and gave them all warm hats. They even danced with the students at one point.
One former shepherd boy, Julius Matsoso Majoso, 32, who now teaches at the school was impressed with William, Harry and Seeiso’s compassion for them.
“They are really shepherds because shepherds are the people who really take care of other things. So it means they are really Kings.” he said.
On Sunday, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York became the first British royal to run in the London marathon.In addition, Princess Beatrice, 21, helped set a world record for largest group of runners to finish the race while tied together. The Princess was among 34 people joined together by use of a bungee cord which gave them the name the “Team Caterpillar.”
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“The hardest thing was trying to keep a steady pace that 34 people could do,” the Princess said, according to The Sun. “The crowd were fantastic and they kept me going.”
Mom Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, plus Dad Prince Andrew and younger sister Princess Eugenie were there to congratulate Beatrice when she made it to the end after running 26.2 miles in 5 hours and 15 minutes
“It was amazing when we saw the end in sight – I thought it would never come,” said Beatrice
“‘I’m so, so proud. She’s the first member of the Royal Family to run the marathon and it’s an incredible achievement,” the Duchess of York told The Sun.
Princess Beatrice’s team’s participation was to raise money for the charity, Children in Crisis.
She now vows to run the London marathon again next year – this time alone!
Princess Haya inaugurated the seventh annual Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development conference (DIHAD) on Sunday, which had this year’s theme as “Global Health Challenges of Tomorrow: Impact & Response.” Several international organizations gathered to discussed the recent humanitarian crisis in Haiti, food shortage and climate change.
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During DIHAD’s opening ceremony, Haya spoke of the need to bring changes to humanitarianism as its demand grows.
“The traditional solution to hunger is simply to produce more food – more wheat, maize or rice. It is not that simple. We need the right foods for the right people at the right times in their lives. To deal with hunger effectively, we need to target our interventions better,” she said. “Ultimately, we need to modify behaviors and encourage healthy lifestyles in order to reduce the soaring burden.”
The Princess also voiced her concern about the way aid money is raised and spent.
“Too often there is a humanitarian industry or a humanitarian bureaucracy that consumes too much of what is donated,” she said. “If we are to make progress on issues like hunger or the epidemic of obesity and cope with the massive humanitarian emergencies, the culture of aid must change.”
“The biggest global health challenges that we will face tomorrow are the ones we are creating today,” she continued. “Globalization, population growth, and climate change, all man-made, will have significant impacts on health.”
Haya also mentioned two major food problems: hunger and obesity, both of which are and will cause more health issues in the future.
“Despite a sharp rise in obesity rates, under-nutrition is still probably the greatest immediate threat to global health because it plays such a large role in deaths among young children,” she said. “But, the tsunami-like surge of overeating occurring worldwide is now creating a massive public health challenge in the form of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, stroke and heart disease.”
After DIHAD’s opening ceremony, Princess Haya was given a tour of the exhibits and stands set up for the conference. In this way, she met over 275 humanitarian and charity associations, relief agencies, NGOs, donors and procurers. Some of them included UNICEF, the World Food Program and the UAE Red Crescent Society.
Monaco’s Charlotte Casiraghi turned heads at a recent charity event in London Tuesday night. Dressed in a coral Valentino haute couture dress, the daughter of Princess Caroline stood out as she mingled with models and other famous people at the Love Ball.
The ball raised money for model Natalia Vodianova’s The Naked Heart Foundation. The proceeds will go to building playgrounds in Vodianova’s native Russia.
Celebrities such as Kate Moss, Leona Lewis, Peaches Geldof and Elizabeth Hurley attended the event.
It coincided with London’s Fashion Week, which Ms. Casiraghi could be expected to make appearances at some fashion shows, being the fashionista she is.
Britain’s Prince Harry spent this weekend in the Caribbean island nation of Barbados, where he promoted his charity Sentebale, which helps children in the African Kingdom of Lesotho. The Prince arrived on Friday, along with Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso, and did several things to draw attention to Sentebale, including kicking off the Sentebale Polo Cup.
AP Photo/Arthur Edwards, PA
On Friday, Harry was greeted by Sir Clifford Husbands, Governor General of Barbados, and several other local dignitaries. But his real work began the next day when he and Prince Seeiso visited the pediatric ward of the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. There. Harry met with the sick children, and even held some of the babies.
Later, the two Princes went to the Bay Primary School and spoke with the students there.
“It’s very easy to make a small difference, but how long will that difference last for?” Prince Harry asked the boys and girls.
“If things are really, really bad, you can make things less bad for a short amount of time, but to make a real difference is to stop those bad times from really happening . . . .”
What Harry was referring to was his Sentebale charity (which means “Forget Me Not”) he and Seeiso set up four years ago to help disadvantaged children in Lesotho. But this charity does more than just give alms to those kids, it helps them “to really stand up on their own two feet,” Prince Seeiso said.
Later, Harry and Seeiso met with Barbados’ war veterans and shared their experiences serving their countries.
Today was the big polo event, where Harry played with Mark Tomlinson, one of Britain’s leading polo players, against a South African team in the Sentebale Polo Cup at the Apes Hill Club.
Before the match, he told guests: “It seems to be one of life’s cruellest ironies that when natural disaster strikes – whether it be earthquake in Haiti, or years of drought and ravaging by HIV/Aids in Lesotho – it is always the most vulnerable, the defenseless, normally the children, who are left exposed and needing more help.
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“We seem so powerless to prevent these things from happening, but out of such tragedy, comes the purest of human reactions: love, charity, and, in time, a sense of renewed hope. This is really what Sentebale is about.”
Later, Harry and Seeiso attended a Haiti benefit concert at Farley Park which was televised all over Barbados. It was at that concert that the two royals displayed their fun side. The hosts told the audience that if they donated 5,000 Barbados dollars, the two princes would get on stage and dance.
Indeed that happened and Harry and Seeiso strutted their stuff on stage to loud cheers from the crowd. The pair both wore T-shirts produced to promote the concert with the words Haiti We Care on the front. They moved to the thumping rhythms by singer Red Plastic Bag.
There are some reports that Prince Harry may go to Haiti soon, but so far there are no confirmations.
It was announced by the Belgian royal court that Princess Astrid, the daughter of King Albert II and Queen Paola, will become patron of the charity, Damiaanactie. Until last week, Queen Fabiola was the charity’s patron, but she stepped down due to her fragile health.
Damiaanactie raises money to buy leprosy and TBC medications for those living in the Third World. It usually auctions such items as pens to help raise money.
News that the octogenarian Fabiola will relinquish being this charity’s patron does mean she will be giving up any royal engagements in the near future. So far, she is expected to participate in the usual events she took part in the past, such as National Day and King’s Day.
At Bavinck School in The Hague Thursday morning, Princess Maxima of the Netherlands kicked-off a drive aimed at needy children in Third World countries. The project, Edukans Shoe buddies, focuses on school children filling their shoe boxes with toys and school supplies.
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