Featured Image Credit: John Nacion/Getty Images/Georges De Keerle/Getty Images
Topics: Prince Harry, Princess Diana, Royal Family, Meghan Markle, Charity, UK News
Britt Jones
Topics: Prince Harry, Princess Diana, Royal Family, Meghan Markle, Charity, UK News
Prince Harry has a lot to say while following in his mother’s footsteps in New York City.
Just yesterday on September 23, Harry made his debut in the Big Apple, whilst making a speech about a very important cause.
The 40-year-old, who has started a new life in the US alongside his wife, Meghan Markle and his children, Archie and Lilibet, is entering philanthropy dedicated to the late Princess Diana.
It was when he stepped up to the podium to support The HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization who works in over 30 countries to clear landlines and other evidence of war, that everyone saw just how much he honours his mother’s legacy.
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The Trust gained international recognition, when the Princess of Wales walked through an active landmine in Huambo, Angola, in 1997 in a bid to promote an international ban.
The HALO Trust has since said that ‘countless thousands of lives have been saved by the 1997 global landmine ban’ after Diana’s walk.
Now, nearly three decades since that day and since her death in August of the same year, Harry is stepping up to the plate.
He said during his speech: "As you know, The HALO Trust work in Angola meant a great deal to my mother.
"Carrying on her legacy is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously."
When he visited Angola five years ago, where he retraced her footsteps."
He shared: "Much has changed in my life and the world since 2019 when I first visited. In those five years, I've become a father for the second time. And while you don't need children to have a stake in the future of our planet, I do know that my mother would have been horrified that anyone's children or grandchildren would live in a world still infested with mines."
The Duke of Sussex, attended the event which celebrated Angola's governance in landmine clearance.
He has previously spoken of his support to make the world free of landmines by 2025 when delivering a speech at Kensington Palace on International Mine Awareness Day in 2017, and spoke to The HALO Trust team who were working in Ukraine in March 2022 during the Russia conflict.
US Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, followed Harry’s speech, and expressed to the audience how well he thinks the royal is doing.
He told Harry: "Prince Harry, thank you for your leadership, for your heart, for your vision, for sustaining the legacy of your mother and for inspiring a whole new generation around the world to be engaged in this critical work against the scourge of land mines.”
But it’s all down to his love for his late mother.
Speaking to PEOPLE in 2016 at the Invictus Games in Orlando, Harry expressed that his actions are down to one thing: to make his mother proud.
He shared: "I certainly hope and believe everything I do makes her proud.
"In the 12 short years I was lucky enough to have with her, I saw and felt the energy and lift she got from helping others, no matter their background, ailment or status. Her life and theirs was better for it, however short theirs or hers was.
"I honor my mother in everything I do. I am my mother's son.”