There are nearly 200 countries across this big old world, and continually warring brothers Prince William and Prince Harry both have plans to go to one of them—albeit not together, and for vastly different reasons.
William’s camp announced back in May that the third annual Earthshot Prize Awards—which, heretofore, included stops in London and Boston—will head to Singapore on November 7. We just found out yesterday that Harry will also be heading to the island republic in Southeast Asia, where he will play polo in the 2023 Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup at the Singapore Polo Club on August 12. Sentebale is a charity founded in 2006 by Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho that helps children and adolescents in the African country of Lesotho—and the annual polo event helps raise funds for the organization.
Just as Harry founded Sentebale—which translates to “forget me not,” which was the favorite flower of his mother, Princess Diana—William and David Attenborough founded The Earthshot Prize in 2020, which awards five winners each year for their contributions to environmentalism. (Each winner receives a £1 million grant to continue the work; the prize was first awarded in 2021 and is planned to run annually until 2030.)
“The Earthshot Prize is all about showing the world that solutions to some of the biggest environmental challenges we face are out there,” William said in the statement announcing Singapore as the awards ceremony’s third destination. “After two years of discovering impactful ideas and innovations, I am delighted that The Earthshot Prize is traveling to Singapore, where the groundbreaking solutions of our 2023 finalists will be celebrated.” Earthshot is a play off of John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot, which aimed to put an American on the moon by the end of the 1960s (a goal that was achieved, despite many thinking it was impossible).
Before William (and potentially Catherine, who has been by her husband’s side for the previous two awards ceremonies) heads off to Singapore, he will visit New York City on September 19 to attend the second annual Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit—where the 15 finalists for the 2023 Earthshot Prize will be announced.
Harry will reach Singapore first, in less than two weeks’ time, and while there he will compete in the polo event for the Royal Salute Sentebale Team, People reports. After spending his gap year in Lesotho, Harry was so taken with the country that he founded a charity to help children and young people affected by poverty, inequality, and HIV/AIDS, in both Lesotho and southern Africa. Since its inception in 2020, the Polo Cup has raised over $14 million for Sentebale.
“The annual Polo Cup is essential to Sentebale’s vital work ensuring children and young people are healthy, resilient, and able to thrive,” Harry said in a statement. “The funds raised this year will support our Clubs and Camps programme, which provides intensive psychosocial support to young people living with HIV. In a time where being HIV positive is no longer a death sentence, we are empowering young people to know their status, stay healthy, and eliminate the stigma so that they can break the cycle. We are delighted to return to the renowned Singapore Polo Club in August and are once again enormously grateful for the polo community and our sponsors, in particular ISPS Handa, for their ongoing commitment to Lesotho and Botswana’s youth.”
For the past two years, the Polo Cup has been in a location far closer to Harry’s current home base of Montecito, California—Aspen, Colorado, where the event was held in both 2021 and 2022. Since its beginnings in 2010, the match has taken place in such locations as Barbados, Harry’s former home of the U.K., Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Italy, and even Singapore, back in 2017.
Before he heads to Singapore, Harry will stop off in Tokyo on August 9 for the International Sports Promotion Society Sports Values Summit, which touches on the power of sport, community, and philanthropy, People reports.
Environmentalism is a cause deeply important to William (and Harry as well, along with their father King Charles); helping the youth of southern Africa matters greatly to Harry (as does polo, an interest William shares, as well). Both of those causes—and the organizations they each founded to support them—will take them to the same country. If that’s not a conversation starter to break the ice between the brothers (who are reportedly still not in touch), we don’t know what is.
