Meghan and Prince Harry’s tour to Africa has redefined the role of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex within the Royal Family, royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said. During the past two weeks, the couple focused their attention on causes close to their hearts: female empowerment, creating a conversation on mental health and tearing apart the stigma surrounding HIV and Aids patients. And they did so while being “deliberately informal”, bringing down the costs of their journey and spending as much time as possible with locals, according to Mr Fitzwilliams.
The Duchess in particular, he continued, seems to have found her dimension during the tour, shacking off claims she is still behaving like a celebrity to affirm herself as a member of the Royal Family and an activist - similarly to what Princess Diana did in the 1990s.
Mr Fitzwilliams told Express.co.uk: “This will undoubtedly be the tour that defines Meghan and Harry as royal activists.
“He followed his mother’s footsteps in Angola and used similar language to his father in warning of the dangers to the planet.
“Harry also campaigned for conservation and the protection of wildlife.
“The people they met, from several presidents to Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela’s widow and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, where Archie featured so prominently, also illustrated the ability of royals to campaign on tour at the highest level.
“Because of a variety of rumours last year and several important public relations missteps this year, much of this had been subsumed in adverse publicity including criticism from previous admirers in the press.
“Meghan was more identified with celebrity than activism.
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“This tour has given her a chance to concentrate on a specific agenda and also make headlines herself, especially with the speech in which she defined herself as ‘a woman of colour’.
“Her agenda of gender equality and female empowerment was central to a series of engagements, the issues of education, leadership, entrepreneurship and fighting against deprived conditions and against HIV.
“She was helping women in a country which the President, Cyril Ramaphosa, had admitted was unsafe for women.
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“She was deliberately informal, didn’t wear her engagement ring or let her message be diluted by engagements requiring glamorous clothes.
“She had a special message for the young, especially young women, which will resonate in the Commonwealth where over 60 per cent are under 30.”
Meghan, who with Harry was appointed Commonwealth Youth Ambassador in April 2018 by the Queen, introduced herself to South Africans on the first day of the tour saying she was in the country as a “mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour, and as your sister”.
And she tried to maintain the focus on her engagement rather than her wardrobe or jewellery, recycling several dresses and leaving home her diamond engagement ring.
Harry and Meghan returned transformed from Africa, with their role more defined and allegations of behaving like celebrities cast aside.
Similarly, Princess Diana returned from her landmark trip to Angola in 1997 as a champion of humanitarian causes, after appealing to world leaders for a ban on landmines.
But Harry and Meghan have also taken inspiration from the Prince of Wales and the causes he cares about, Mr Fitzwilliams said.
He added: “They got fantastic press which should influence future coverage a good deal, though it is uncertain in a Britain deep in political turmoil over Brexit, how much impact it will have on the public.
“But it should show us how fortunate are we are to have committed activists like Meghan and Harry who, inspired by Diana and by Charles, are making a difference in their own way and in ways nobody else could.”
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October 05, 2019 at 12:01PM
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‘Royal activists!’ How Meghan and Harry’s trip to Africa has defined them - Express
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