Prince William went solo in Manchester to announce a new charity scheme

Prince William stepped out solo in Manchester on Thursday. The reason why Kate was not with him will reveal itself shortly. William was visiting a memorial to Jessie James, a 15-year-old Black child who was killed in a gang shooting in Manchester in 2006. The child’s family and friends created Jessie’s Wall, the memorial, and there has been a lot of social work done since the 2006 shooting to make changes in the city. Youth outreach, anti-gang work, after-school programs. William decided to piggyback on the existing work being done in the city by announcing a donation of £100,000 from the Royal Foundation.

The Prince of Wales will visit a Manchester memorial on Thursday dedicated to a 15-year-old killed in a gangland shooting, as he launches a three-year initiative to tackle youth violence in the city. The Prince will visit Jessie’s Wall in Moss Side, which is dedicated to Jessie James, who was fatally shot in a park in 2006.

He will announce a £100,000 scheme, funded jointly by the Royal Foundation and Andy Burnham, Manchester’s mayor, which will focus on disadvantaged young people.

The initiative forms part of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ push to create “legacy and impact” in the areas they visit.

[From The Telegraph]

So… it’s a three-year initiative, only partially funded by the Royal Foundation and the entire thing is being done for only £100,000. I said this when Will and Kate visited Scarborough and made a BFD about their piddling “donation” to the youth programs there – it’s actually kind of offensive to try to set up these weird bureaucratic schemes with such a small amount of money. Sure, donate to local charities, and if the Royal Foundation was regularly making £10,000 donations to dozens of smaller, local charities around the UK, that would be great and we wouldn’t be talking about the size of the donation. But what William and Kate are doing is coming into some poverty-stricken community, announcing a “new scheme” which they will finance over the course of years, and then they leave that initiative underfunded and dealing with a bureaucratic mess trying to account for every dime. William does the same thing with Earthshot – a big deal is made over the £1 million in prize money, but Earthshot parcels it out over FIVE years, lessening the potential impact for businesses trying to grow.

But hey, William got his photo op. And I’m pretty sure William and Kate think they invented “donating to charity.” Also, he looks like Lurch in all of these photos.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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