Saturday 19 March 2016

Prince Harry in Nepal

He's been there less than 24 hours but already Prince Harry has won Nepal over. The royal visitor touched down in Kathmandu and immediately reached out to the country he will spend four days touring and the response has been huge and happy.


Prince Harry greets his hosts at a reception in Kathmandu on day one of his visit to Nepal
(photo Kensington Royal Instagram)

Prince Harry said before leaving for his trip that he wanted to meet as many of the country's people as possible and to use his high profile visit to help shine a spotlight on the issues facing many of them following the devastating earthquake last April which left over 8,000 dead, many more injured and hundreds of thousands coping with destroyed or badly damaged homes. And the prince's first words as he began his tour touched on that natural disaster. He said ''I pay my respects to those who perished and hope to do what I can to shine a spotlight on the reserve and resilience of the Nepali people. I want to show all those around the world who want to help that this country is open for business. I can't wait to get out there and see all this country has to offer."







Harry was speaking at a reception hosted by the government of Nepal, the first of several high profile events planned for the trip. He began by giving the Namaste greeting, a traditional form of Hindu respectful greeting. He has already made the gesture several times on this first day of his visit which also included a meeting with the Prime Minister of Nepal, K.P.Oli.






But Harry's happiness at being in Nepal had been evident before he even touched down as Kensington Palace shared an image of the view greeting the prince as he came in to land on its official Twitter account. The excitement for this visit has been building for several weeks.




Harry has done his homework ahead of this visit. He held round table discussions with NGOs working on the ground in Nepal last week and then a couple of days ago he invited MapAction to Kensington Palace to hear about their work mapping difficult terrains in countries hit by disaster and their work to help save lives in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake.





And day two will be his first opportunity to see for himself the impact of that disaster as he visits the Ancient Royal Palace at Patan Durbar Square in Kathmandu which was badly damaged in the quake and also travel to Bhaktapur to visit a site which helped distribute emergency supplies in the aftermath. His day will end a visit to a temporary camp which houses around 250 people displaced by the earthquake and hear their experiences.






Harry said before he left that he wanted to experience 'the warm welcome' of the people of Nepal. Judging by the reaction he's had so far on his trip, that welcome will be very warm indeed.

1 comment:

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