Prince Harry Calls For Volunteers to Support COVID-19 Frontline Services
After catastrophic earthquakes devastated areas of Nepal in 2015, it was the Team Rubicon UK charity that Prince Harry joined to help rebuild one of the communities struck the hardest. And now, as the world continues the fight against coronavirus, the Duke of Sussex is encouraging more people to support the charity’s latest efforts to help frontline workers and vulnerable people.
During a chat with military podcast Declassified, Harry praised Team Rubicon UK's Op RE:ACT initiative, which has deployed nearly 200 veterans across Britain to supply food and personal protective gear, such as eye protection and medical masks, to those in need.
“I'm honored to be a veteran, and honored to be part of this community,” Harry said. “I’m just so incredibly proud to see what these individuals up and down the country and across the world are doing on a day-to-day basis. What has happened, especially in the U.K., shows the very best of human spirit.”
He added, “It's also proving that I think things are better than we're led to believe through certain corners of the media. It can be very worrying when you're sitting there and the only information you are getting is from certain news channels, but then if you are on the right platforms, you can really sense this human spirit coming to the forefront.”
Team Rubicon UK—which helps retrain veterans to for life-saving humanitarian work—has already supplied nearly 35,000 meals to hospitals, food banks, and vulnerable communities in Britain. It has also distributed close to one million PPE (personal protective equipment) items to frontline medical staff. Their network of 14 “live tasks” is also helping provide vital support to nationwide hospital mortuaries as they deal with the high number of COVID-19 related deaths (which stands at 15,464 as of Saturday afternoon).
“I want to say a huge thank you, as we all do, to the NHS workers and everybody that's volunteering,” Harry added. “Because up and down the U.K., there are literally hundreds of thousands of people volunteering. ... It's such a wonderfully British thing that we all come to help when we need it.”
He also took the opportunity during the April 16 podcast taping to congratulate Captain Tom Moore, the 99-year-old British war veteran who raised about $29 million for official National Health Service charities. “I think what he's done is utterly amazing, but it’s not just what he's done, it’s the reaction that people have had as well. I think it's just wonderfully British,” he smiled. “It just makes me incredibly proud to see the Brits stepping up like this, but I really, really hope that this keeps going after coronavirus and after this whole pandemic has come to a close.”
Supporting the military community is an area of activism that Harry will continue to prioritize in his new working chapter. After serving in the Armed Forces for 10 years, and undertaking two tours of duty in Afghanistan, he has remained committed to championing veterans and helping provide opportunities for wounded, injured, and sick (WIS) servicemembers through landmark initiatives he has founded, such as the Endeavour Fund and Invictus Games.
In his episode of the Declassified podcast, which is available starting April 19, Harry said, “I’ve said in the past, before I became a parent myself, but for those mums and dads out there who sometimes struggle to see who the appropriate role models are for their kids, I always say that the military community—especially the WIS community—are, to me, some of the best role models out there.”
He added to host Michael Coates, “It's about selflessness rather than selfishness and I think in today's culture, in today's world, we need more role models that are willing to put others ahead of themselves. I think that being part of a unit, being part of a team, and for me, wearing a uniform that was the same as everybody else’s, it kind of makes you feel totally equal, but at the same time makes you want do everything you can for the person on your left and your right.”
The duke later added, “The life experiences that you get in such a short space of time not only grow you up, but they make and turn you into what I think is an exceptional human being... You represent something, you represent a community, you represent a certain set of values, and I believe that those values will be with you for the rest of your life and you want to do everything you can to give back.”
Former firefighter and soldier Coates, who co-created the network to promote and develop positive mental fitness, has shifted the focus of the podcast to support society in lockdown. “Hosting this episode with two fellow veterans was an absolute privilege,” he said in a statement shared with BAZAAR.com. “I have huge amounts of respect for what both have done and what they are doing right now to support our communities. To see the growth and development expressed by not only the Military Community, but seeing how society is working together towards a common goal, is humbling.”
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