Global Citizen’s recorded Vax Live event aired on Saturday night, and it included speeches from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Harry attended the event, attended by a fully vaccinated audience of frontline workers, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Meghan, who is going to give birth to a baby girl this summer, was not present at the concert. She recorded her message for the crowd. In her speech, she focused on the importance of gender equity, the fact that women have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and the importance of ensuring equal global vaccine access.
She also touched on the fact that she and Harry will be welcoming a baby girl soon:
“My husband and I are thrilled to soon be welcoming a daughter. It’s a feeling of joy we share with millions of other families around the world. When we think of her, we think of all the other families around the globe who must be given the ability and support to lead us forward.”
See her full speech below.
“The past year has been defined by communities coming together tirelessly and heroically to tackle COVID-19. We’ve gathered tonight because the road ahead is getting brighter. But it’s going to take every one of us to find our way forward. As campaign chairs of Vax Live, my husband and I believe it’s critical that our recovery prioritizes the health, safety, and success of everyone, and particularly women, who have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic.
With the surge in gender-based violence, the increased responsibility of unpaid care work, and new obstacles that have reversed so much progress for women in the workplace, we’re at an inflection point for gender equity. Women, and especially women of color, have seen a generation of economic gain wiped out. Since the pandemic began, nearly five-and-a-half million women have lost work in the U.S., and 47 million women around the world are expected to slip into extreme poverty.
But if we work together to bring vaccines to every country and continent, insist that vaccines are equitably distributed and fairly priced, and ensure that governments around the world are donating their additional vaccines to countries in need, then we can begin to fully rebuild, not only to restore us to where we were before, but to go further and rapidly advance the conditions, opportunity, and mobility for women everywhere.
My husband and I are thrilled to soon be welcoming a daughter. It’s a feeling of joy we share with millions of other families around the world. When we think of her, we think of all the other families around the globe who must be given the ability and support to lead us forward. Their future leadership depends on the decisions we make and the actions we take now to set them up and to set all of us up for a successful, equitable, and compassionate tomorrow.
Now tonight we’ve had a reminder of the things we miss the most, be it music and sporting events, or just physical contact with family and friends, where we can sit together, laugh together and hug one another. Whatever it is, all circles back to the the same thing: Connecting as a community. For most of us, this means our local community—our loved ones, our neighborhood, but let’s also think about our global community. Across the world, we’ve struggled together. Now, we deserve to heal together. We want to make sure that as we recover, we recover stronger, that as we rebuild, we rebuild together. Thank you.”
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“Hi everybody,” Harry said in his speech. “We are at a defining moment in the global fight against COVID-19. Tonight is a celebration of each of you here, the vaccinated frontline workers in the audience and the millions of frontline heroes around the world,” he said in his address. “You spent the last year battling courageously and selflessly to protect us all. You served and sacrificed, put yourselves in harm’s way and with bravery knowing the costs. We owe you an incredible depth of gratitude, thank you.”
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Meghan and Harry, who live in Montecito, California full-time, launched their non-profit, Archewell, and have continued to dedicate much of their lives to non-profit, charity work. They’ve been spending the pandemic in their new home with their son, Archie, who turned two on May 6.
To celebrate his birthday this year, the couple put out a call for people to get vaccinated.
“This year, our world continues to be on the path to recovery from COVID-19,” they wrote on Archewell’s site. “Yet too many families are still struggling with the impact of this pandemic. While some places are on the verge of healing, in so many parts of the world, communities continue to suffer. As of today, around 80 percent of the nearly one billion COVID-19 vaccine shots that have been given were administered in wealthier countries. While we may feel that normalcy is around the corner, we remind ourselves that in much of the world, and especially in developing countries, vaccine distribution has effectively yet to start.”
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