Harry visits Malawi college

Britain’s Prince Harry began his first official visit to Malawi yesterday, with wife Meghan joining him on a college visit via video call after she had met a group of female activists in Cape Town the previous day. The Duke of Sussex had left the duchess and their fourmonth-old son Archie - who stole the spotlight when he sat on his mother’s lap while his parents chatted with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu in Cape Town - to visit Botswana, Angola and Malawi.

Though Harry has visited Malawi several times privately, this trip is his first visit in an official capacity, marking the final leg of his solo tour across southern Africa before rejoining his family in Johannesburg. The college visit was to allow the Duke of Sussex to meet young women whose education is partially supported by The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (QCT), of which Harry and Meghan are president and vice president respectively.

Harry was greeted by a line of students waving UK and Malawi flags before entering the college, where Meghan joined proceedings via Skype while, she said, Archie took a nap. A post on the couple’s official Instagram said the project was changing the lives of many young women. “As president and vice president of the QCT, the Duke and Duchess both believe in the power of education to empower young girls, and change society as a whole,” the post said.

Harry will next see President Peter Mutharika, who he has met on a number of occasions, and attend a reception hosted by the British High Commissioner. It was announced on Sunday that Meghan had met a group of female leaders and activists the previous day. The women included Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, who in 1956 led 20,000 women in an anti-apartheid march on the seat of government in Pretoria when she was only 18 years old.

“I was recently reminded that the first one up the mountain often gets knocked down the hardest but makes way for everyone behind them,” a statement quoted Meghan as saying to the women. Today Harry will fly to Liwonde National Park in Malawi, where he will join an anti-poaching patrol with local park rangers and witness an anti-poaching demonstration conducted by local rangers and the UK military.

The next day he will visit a health centre, pharmacy and youth reproductive health outreach program before rejoining his family in South Africa for another township visit, this time in Johannesburg