There’s repeated whataboutery with kate and her early years work on here. So I guess that invites people to comment on it in relation to Meghan. There really is no comparison though.
This is really very summarised as there is a huge amount of info about this. From what I understand she launched that huge 5 Big questions survey, (yes I contributed to it) to gather views from people in the real world. I think she got around 500,000 responses.
The results of that survey formed the basis of this extensive report and lists a steering committee of people who are involved
www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2020-11/ipsos_mori_son_report_final.pdf
Which has now led to the development of the royal foundation centre for early childhood. It acknowledges that transformation is not easy and these things take time. It gives info on what their work will continue to do and what people can do to get involved.
You can see the amount of work and dedication that has gone into this over many years by a number of credible people relevant to the field and not just Kate.
This is worlds apart to Meghan’s initiative. Yes they are both privileged and in a position to influence others and are probably just the face behind the work of others. I’m sure there will be some flaws in Kate’s work which should rightly be critiqued, just like with Meghan’s work. But I think Kate has proven her understanding of the underlying issues and commitment to really use her platform to drive this area she is passionate about. She’s actually talked to people affected over a number of years and listened to what they have had to say for starters. I am more than happy for her to be funded by our taxes if this is the kind of work she is going to front.
Archewell may only be a year old (or 4 in the making) but Meghan is older than Kate and has had much more freedom over the years to pick any cause she wants to get stuck in to, no matter how political. She was apparently already a millionaire before she met Harry and could have been doing something more substantial already. There is no reason why Meghan can’t commit to something like this in the same way Kate has if she really wanted to. I just don’t think she wants to truly commit to something in depth.
In this instance Meghan could have at least spoken to women impacted, listened to what their barriers and deep rooted issues are, highlighted these as part of her launch, maybe launched some sort of bigger long term project around this issue, and then focussed on the mentoring 40x40 trend as a way to kick off the whole thing, as it’s quite simple to action quickly in the short term that may help some people in the moment, whilst bringing publicity to the bigger aim and she can continue any long term work in this area to help others that mentoring wouldn’t make a difference.
What she’s actually done doesn’t even begin to drive the ‘systematic cultural change’ archewell foundation claims to want to do. In a couple of days this thread and chat on Twitter will fizzle out. Then what. We will have to wait and see what’s next as she’s not communicated anything.