How Harry and Meghan are positioning themselves as philanthropists in each photo from their Christmas card – from visits with wounded soldiers to hugging school children

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex appear to be positioning themselves as philanthropists in each of the six images featured on their Christmas card.

Unlike most royals, who typically select a single portrait for their Christmas card, Montecito-based Prince Harry, 40, and Meghan Markle, 43, opted for six images, with each displaying a highlight from their busy year.

Omid Scobie, the Sussexes’ long-time friend and royal reporter, who wrote the couple’s biography Finding Freedom, shared the card on X, writing: ”The Sussexes share highlights of their year on the 2024 Archewell holiday card.’

A message from the couple also featured: ‘On behalf of the office of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Archewell Productions and Archewell Foundations. We wish you a very Happy Holiday Season and a joyful new year.’

The card, released on Monday, included a sweet family photograph, with the doting parents seen with open arms as they greeted their children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, as well as their pet dogs.

However, family was not the only priority, and instead, the royal couple used the festive greeting to card to revisit some of their most benevolent pursuits from 2024.

The decision is a sure sign that the pair long to be viewed not only for their connections to the monarch, but also for their charitable pursuits, much like the late Princess Diana was.

From school visits to supporting cultural sites abroad, here, Femail explores each image in the Sussex’s Christmas card, and how it supports their philanthropic message.

SCHOOL VISIT 

The first of six images on the Christmas card is from the Duke and Duchess’s visit to Colegio La Giralda school during their quasi-royal tour of Colombia in August.

In the photograph, Meghan, who has famously dubbed herself a ‘hugger’, compassionately embraced a young pupil at the school in Bogota. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were escorted to a school in the Santa Fe area of Bogota with at least 16 armoured police vehicles, as well as armed officers and soldier.

Roads were blocked off as the couple’s convoy swept into the area, which is described as a no-go zone in the Colombian capital – when MailOnline asked for a taxi to take our reporter there he questioned if we had the right place.

After being greeted by the school’s headmaster Serafin Ordoñez, the Duke and Duchess, along with the country’s Vice President Francia Marquez, took part in a brief tour.

It saw the couple observe an art session, visit a kindergarten class, and get their hands dirty by helping the young students plant trees in the school’s garden.

La Giralda school in Santa Fe was nominated for being one of the top ten in the world, not for its education record, but for its promotion of a healthy living and lifestyle for students and teachers.

After being greeted by the school’s headmaster Serafin Ordóñez, the Duke and Duchess along with the Vice President participated in a brief tour of the school.

Meghan helped a five-year-old pupil called Manuela plant a walnut tree while Harry helped out with a guayacan tree – a plant native to South America.

The entire school prepared special moments for the Duke and Duchess’s arrival, including performances all throughout the grounds where students wore traditional Colombian dress and performed songs along with live music.

Pupils also presented presents for Harry and Meghan’s children Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, including Colombian style ponchos, as well as personal letters and drawings.

School CEO Diana Basto said:’ It was so special for us to have Harry and Meghan come and visit us and the staff and children were all very excited. It was a lovely experience to have them here.

‘They visited various parts of the school including the memorial museum section where they learned about people who have been killed in previous conflicts in Colombia’s history.

‘It was emotional for them and from their to the kindergarten and then finally onto the garden where they helped plant two trees.

‘There was music and dancing as they went around the school and they joined in with the dancing. Then Harry had a go at the punching bag in the gym.

‘They were super excited when they were given the presents and because the children in the kindergarten are the same age as Archie. ‘

The first stop inside was to look at the school’s historical memory museum where students share art they’ve created commemorating those killed in past Colombian conflicts.

The students described the room as a space meant for creation and collaboration and their artwork is made to honour the resilience of the Colombian people.

For a visit to a kindergarten class, the Duke and Duchess spent time with students, and worked on puzzles, while they conversed with the class.

Ms Basto said that once again Meghan spoke Spanish to the children and told one student: ‘You’re the same age as my son Archie!”

Prince Harry also practised his Spanish, asking students their names and age.

The kindergarteners also performed a song for the Duke and Duchess before presenting them with gifts of ponchos and dolls for Archie and Lilibet and handwritten letters.

Following the kindergarten visit, the Duke and Duchess and the ice president Marquez went to the school’s garden.

The garden has existed since 2020 and was created for students to not only learn to appreciate the Earth but also the farmers of Colombia who provide food for the country.

The Duke and Duchess also visited the school’s social and emotional gym, where Harry got down on his knees and donned boxing gloves before carrying out punches on a punch bag.

The exercises were part of a programme which highlights mental and physical exercises for students to learn how better balance their mental health and personal wellbeing.

The students demonstrated for the Duke, Duchess, and VP their own personal meditation techniques and how they balance their emotions, good and bad.

COMPARISONS TO CHARITABLE PRINCESS DIANA

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared to make a sweet nod to the late Princess Diana in the second image featured on their 2024 Christmas card.

The sweet photograph showed Princess Lilibet, three, running into Prince Harry’s waiting arms, while Meghan, 42, held her arms open for a hug from Prince Archie, five.

The choice appears to be a subtle nod to a famous image of Diana, then the Princess of Wales, greeting her children on the deck of the yacht Britannia in Toronto, when William and Harry joined their parents on an official visit to Canada, 23 October 1991.

Like the Sussex’s greeting to their children on the festive card, Diana, dressed in an orange and white Moschino suit, appeared elated as she held out her arm to hug her young sons.

The couple will no doubt welcome comparisons to the late royal, who was known, and appreciated for, her charitable pursuits.

Princess Diana was president or patron of over 100 charities as part of her royal duties, Diana’s Legacy reported.

Much of her work involved assisting children, HIV/AIDS patients, and homeless and disabled people.

After 1996, Princess Diana worked as either patron or president for: Centrepoint, a homeless charity, English National Ballet, Leprosy Mission, National AIDS Trust, Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and Royal Marsden Hospital.

In the year before she died in 1997, Princess Diana also campaigned to ban the production and use of landmines.

Like Harry and Meghan, the royal also made many visits overseas to visit hospices, schools, charities and fundraising events.

Prince Harry has long voiced his desire to continue his mother’s legacy, and in September, during the Halo Trust’s anti-landmine event in New York, he said that that ‘carrying on Diana’s legacy is something he takes very seriously’.

SUPPORTING CULTURAL CENTRE 

Harry pecked his wife on the head at Colombia’s Centro Nacional de las Artes Delia Zapata in the third image.

While the photograph, taken in August, displayed the pair’s close bond, it once again reinforced their dedication to supporting cultural infrastructures.

The centre ‘is the most important cultural infrastructure built by the Ministry of Culture in recent years,’ its website reads.

Located in the heart of Bogota, it offers artistic programmes, and acts as an ‘open meeting point for creation and dialogue with the territories and the world.’

The website explained: ‘We are going to spin a powerful narrative that asks us pertinent questions about life, society, human dignity, solidarity, and the care of our big home.

‘We are going to change our imaginations, attitudes, and behaviours, to form active cultural audiences and citizens to contribute to the construction of a more just and free society.

During the visit, staff treated Meghan and Harry to a vibrant tribal dance at the arts centre.

The Duchess chatted to vice president Francia Márquez and pointed to some of the costumes, before shaking hands with the dancers at the end of the performance.

She looked stylish as she changed into her second look of the tour – a colourful maxi dress by Johanna Ortiz, who has Colombian heritage.

MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATES

Image number four is from the Sussex’s ‘quasi-royal’ tour of Nigeria, during a visit to the Wuse Lightway Academy in Abuja.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left schoolchildren in raptures during the visit, as the Duke talked about ‘losing loved ones’ while Meghan told them not to ‘suffer in silence.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex met with children at the Wuse Lightway Academy in May, just hours after their arrival in Abuja in the early morning.

Wearing a flowing coral dress, Meghan told the school’s pupils – which is supported by the couple’s Archewell Foundation – that she can ‘see myself’ in every one of them, as she asked them to ‘be honest with each other’.

And Harry – who appeared alongside her on the green stage – championed the importance of mental health, and referenced when someone has ‘lost a loved one in your family and you don’t know who to turn to or who to speak to’.

The pair left the children cheering as they delivered their message. Meghan told the children: ‘As I look around this room, I see myself in all of you as well.

‘So it is a complete honour to have our first visit to Nigeria, be here with all of you.

‘We believe in all of you, we believe in your futures, we believe in your ability to continue telling your stories and to just be honest with each other.

‘There is no need to suffer in silence. Just make sure that you’re taking care of yourselves (and) your mental health.

‘So thank you to all of you. Thank you to these teams, to our executive director of the Archewell Foundation, whose birthday is today.’

Prince Harry evoked memories of his suffering after his mother Princess Diana’s death as he went on to speak to the school children.

The Duke – who was 12 and his brother William 15 when Diana died in Paris in 1997 – added that there was ‘no shame to be able to acknowledge that today is a bad day’, 

He said: ‘In some cases around the world, in more than you would believe, there is a stigma when it comes to mental health.

‘Too many people don’t want to talk about it, because it’s invisible – something in your mind that you can’t see. It’s not like a broken leg, it’s not like a broken wrist, it’s something we are still relatively unsure of.

‘But guess what? Every single person in this room – the youngest, the oldest – every single person has mental health.’

He said that people have to ‘look after yourselves to be able to look after other people, and other people have to be able to look after themselves to be able to look after you’, adding: ‘That’s the way it works.’

The Duke continued: ‘And there is no shame to be able to acknowledge that today is a bad day, OK? That you woke up this morning feeling sad; that you were at school, feeling stressed; that you’ve lost a loved one in your family and you don’t know who to turn to or who to speak to. All of these things you may even be led to believe are not for conversation.’

He said the Sussexes were ‘here today to tell you that that is not the case’.

Harry continued: ‘Every single one of those things is completely normal, it is a human reaction, whether it’s grief, stress, whatever the feeling is. It comes from an experience that you have had – you can have it, she (Meghan) can have it, I can have it. They can have it. Every single one of us is likely to have it on any given day.

‘So if you take anything away from today, just know that mental health affects every single person.’ 

VISIT FIRST FREE AFRICAN TOWN IN THE AMERICAS

The penultimate photograph showed Meghan and Harry at San Basilio de Palenque in Cartagena, Colombia, during the final day of their tour.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex beamed as they made the most of the third day of their trip to Colombia and headed to the historic area.

Harry and Meghan walked through the village square, which was the first free African town of the Americas and browsed stalls with traditional handicrafts.

The village, set up by freed African slaves almost 300 years ago, has been described as a ‘little corner of Africa’.

The stop was particularly significant for Meghan, who revealed she was ’43 per cent Nigerian’, during her tour of Nigeria in May.

At the village of San Basilio de Palenque, local rapper Andris Padilla Julio, 32, performed for the Duke and Duchess after they toured the area. 

Known by the rap name Afroneto, Padilla is the creator of a style known RFP or Folkloric Palanquero Rap.

He said: ‘I spoke with Harry and his wife and Francia Marquez about our plan to build an arts performance centre here.

‘I gave them a document with what we want to do and now all they need to do is put in the money that we need. They said they would help. Harry complemented me on my RFP flow and my outfit.’

Josefa Hernandez, 38, a contractor for Colombia’s Ministry of Culture, who served as master of ceremonies for the visit, said: ‘This visit has been very symbolic for us.

‘The Duke and Duchess broke their protocol to thank us for opening the doors of our community to them.

‘They told us that they understood the importance of San Basilio de Palenque for the history of Colombia and the world.’

HOPSITAL VISIT

The final image showed Prince Harry with a military hospital patient in Kaduna, a region dubbed a no go zone by the Foreign and Commonwealth development office, in May.

Harry, who has questioned his security in the UK, flew to the hospital around 120 miles north west of Abuja and apologised on his arrival that he had left Meghan back in the capital of the west African country.

After being welcomed by dancers on a red carpet, Harry told the audience: ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t bring my wife.

‘The focus here in Kaduna is the wounded, injured and sick men and women who serve in Nigerian forces and keep people safe.’

Kaduna is one of the country’s most dangerous states, with nearly 2,000 abductions recorded in 2020, as well as reports of sexual violence including rape. 

The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to the area, which is partly ruled by armed bandits.

Before he left, Harry was given two paintings — one of him and his late mother Princess Diana and another of him and wife Meghan.

Then he was asked to put on another gift — an outfit of a traditional waistcoat and a ‘Big Gown’, which he needed help getting over his head.

And, with a slightly bemused look, he followed the suggestion that he put on a Hula cap too.

Harry toured about six wards seeing row after row of young men recuperating from their injuries. Many had been shot, ambushed by Boko Haram or lost limbs due to blasts.

He shook hands with around 50 former service personnel and told them: ‘You are going to get better, get back on your feet.’

Half way round he was introduced to 2nd Lt. Princess Owowoh, 23, who had recently graduated from Sandhurst military academy where Harry trained to be an army officer.

Harry had written to her when he’d heard her story. ‘He wrote to congratulate me and say that they were coming to Nigeria and about the Invictus Games Foundation,’ she said.

‘The Invictus Games gives hope to the soldiers. It encourages them to walk towards a goal, to achieve something new.’