Harry and Meghan to attend Cirque du Soleil premiere
The event will raise money for Harry’s Sentebale charity
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will join a Royal Albert Hall audience to watch Cirque du Soleil performers displaying their acrobatic skills in aid of Sentebale.
Harry and Meghan will be guests of honour for the premiere of the Canadian circus company’s production Totem on Wednesday, January 16.
The event will raise awareness and vital funds for the duke’s charity, Sentebale, which helps young people in southern Africa affected by HIV.
The evening will be the second in a series of Sentebale Nights, following on from a fundraising performance of the hit musical Hamilton last year which Meghan and Harry attended.
Their aim was to help youngsters in need and other children who had lost one or both parents to Aids or contracted the disease themselves.
The men established Sentebale in memory of their mothers, with the name of the charity meaning forget-me-not, which Harry later found out was his mother Diana, Princess of Wales’s favourite flower growing up.
In November 2015, Sentebale opened its £2 million Mamohato Children’s Centre in Lesotho to scale up its Mamohato camps – a residential project providing psychological, social and practical support to children struggling to cope with being HIV positive.
Daniel Lamarre, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group’s chief executive, said: “We strive to make a difference in the lives of youths and encourage them to change the world.
“It is because both our organisations share these very values that we will proudly dedicate our Totem premiere to the Sentebale Nights, a perfect way to allow us to raise significant funds and awareness together.”
Johnny Hornby, chairman of Sentebale, said: “At Sentebale, a large part of our educational work with children and adolescents has focused around engaging them through play, entertainment and music.
“We’re very grateful to everyone at Cirque du Soleil for giving us the opportunity to shine a light on the work that Sentebale does to help children and young adults affected by HIV to live happy, healthy and productive lives.”