The Duke of Sussex Prince Harry and
the Duchess of Sussex his wife Meghan
on Friday, kicked off a three-day visit to Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the World located in West Africa . They are both visiting for the first time.
Harry and Meghan’s visit has no affiliation with Britain’s royal family, and is instead at the invitation of the country’s Chief of Defense Staff, General Christopher Musa, Nigerian highest-ranking military official.
The military accorded them the highest military honour as Prince Harry inspected a guard of honour mounted by the Defence Headquarters Garrison while the Duchess was received by the wife of The Chief, Mrs Oghogho Musa and wives of Service Chiefs.
After inspection of the Quarter Guard Prince Harry and his wife exchanged pleasantries with top military officers, their wives and members of the Invictus Games.
Harry and Meghan visited a school in Abuja where they participated in kicking off an inaugural mental health summit run by a local nonprofit, GEANCO, which is affiliated with their Archewell Foundation. The couple was treated with singings, cheers and dancing by the children.
Harry spoke to the students and teachers about why it’s important to break the stigma around mental health and acknowledge how you feel.
“Every single person in this room, the youngest, the oldest, every single person has mental health. So therefore, you have to look after yourself to be able to look after other people. And other people have to be able to look after themselves, to look after you. That’s the way it works. And there is no shame to be able to acknowledge that today is a bad day, OK?” Harry told the crowd.
He added, “[If] you woke up this morning feeling sad, and you left school feeling stressed, and you’ve lost a loved one in your family, and you don’t know who you talk to or who to speak to — all of these things you may be led to believe are not for conversation, we are here today to tell you that that is not the case. Every single one of those things is completely normal. It is a human reaction, whether it’s grief, stress, whatever the feeling is, it comes from an experience that you have had. You can have it. She can have it. I can have it. They can have it. Every single one of us is likely to have that on any given day. So, if you take anything away from today, just know that mental health affects every single person in the entire world.”
While visiting a kindergarten class, the children had the couple on their feet again for a joyous game of “jump up, turn around.”
Harry asked a student, “Is singing and dancing your favorite class?”
Meghan added that their daughter Lili, who is about to turn 3, also loves “all the jumping around.
They also visited a STEM class where students shared robot cars they’d built, and Meghan revealed her son Archie, now 5, liked construction too.
The couple were gifted a traditional wooden mask and books about Nigerian heritage.
Recall that Prince Harry changes residence to US in company filing. Harry returned to London solo on May 8 to attend a 10th anniversary service for the Invictus Games held at St. Paul’s Cathedral.