Meghan and Harry send supplies to schoolgirls in Nigeria
After learning she is 43% Nigerian and he welcomed Team Nigeria at the Invictus Games, the couple continued to show the African nation love.
Schoolgirls in Nigeria just became the recipients of supplies provided in part by the former Meghan Markle.
On Tuesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation announced they were donating school supplies and menstrual products to girls and young women in Nigeria in partnership with the GEANCO Foundation.
“As students around the world returned to school this month, The Archewell Foundation supported girls’ education and health by sending school supplies and menstrual products to young scholars in Nigeria with The GEANCO Foundation,” reads a statement on their website.
The statement explains that GEANCO provides critical health care and education support in Nigeria. Through its David Oyelowo Leadership Scholarship (as in the actor), GEANCO also offers full tuition, medical care, and social and emotional support to young women victims of terrorism and gender inequality in the African nation.
The Archewell Foundation’s donation will bolster GEANCO’s support of young women by also supplying menstrual health education for 2,500 girls throughout the region GEANCO supports.
According to the statement, GEANCO CEO Afam Onyema joined the Archewell Foundation staff members in filling the backpacks for the students. On Instagram, GEANCO shared scenes from the day the students received the backpacks that featured a photo of the students opening them up, another group wearing the backpacks, and a behind-the-scenes look at the team that packed them.
“We’re honored to partner with The Archewell Foundation on an exciting back-to-school project for girls in Nigeria,” GEANCO wrote in the post’s caption, adding: “This incredibly thoughtful gift will equip and empower our girls this school year with confidence & joy.”
The school supplies drop comes on the heels of Meghan and Harry’s welcoming of Team Nigeria at the Invictus Games in Germany this month and a year after Meghan revealed on her podcast that she learned she is 43% Nigerian through a genealogy test.
About her heritage, she said on the podcast, “I’m going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are like ‘What!'”
While giving opening remarks during this year’s Invictus Games, Prince Harry made reference to his wife’s heritage.
“Now, I’m not saying we play favorites in our home, but since my wife discovered she’s of Nigerian descent, it’s likely to get a little bit more competitive this year,” he said to a crowd that included Meghan waving a Nigerian flag and cheering on the nation’s participants.
Meghan’s charitable efforts in African countries didn’t start when she learned her heritage. She has been providing support throughout the continent for almost a decade. In 2016, as a World Vision ambassador, she visited a school in Rwanda and helped bring clean water to their community. In 2019, during a memorable first trip to South Africa, she gave “loved but outgrown” clothes from her son Archie and her friends’ children to a charity for moms.
During the trip, she also gave rousing remarks about what it meant to her to be there.
Though she was visiting on a royal engagement, she said, “I want you to know that for me, I am here as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color, and as your sister. I am here with you, and I am here for you.”
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