The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in Nigeria on Friday, May 10, 2024. Their arrival launched a three-day private visit to African nations, the primary purpose of which was to meet with wounded soldiers and visit local charity associations.
One of their first visits was to a primary and secondary school, Light Academy Nursery and Primary School.
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, during their three-day visit to Nigeria, told children at a mental health summit in Abuja, “There’s no shame in acknowledging that today is a bad day, that you left school feeling stressed.”
The prince and his wife landed in FCT Abuja on Friday morning. They began their visit to Nigeria by visiting Lightway Academy, a primary and secondary school in Abuja. The tour was to last three days, from May 10 to May 12, 2024.
During their tour, they were greeted by some traditional dancers and also met with the primary school children.
Speaking to the BBC news, some group of year five students spoke about their excitement about the prince and his wife’s visit to their school and also concluded that they hoped their visit would increase their school’s profile.
The couples also visited a kindergarten class where the children danced and sang for them. Excited, they also joined in the class singing and dancing.
The couple related their family experience with the kids as they spoke about their kids Archie, who just turned five, and their two-year-old Lilibet.
Meghan, the wife of Prince Harry, said Lilibet’s favourite class was dancing, adding that “maybe it’s all the jumping around.”
In the STEM class, the pupils showed off their robot car construction to the couples, and they told them that Archie also likes construction. The kids were so excited.
Meghan started by telling the audience: “We have got to acknowledge those amazing dance moves’. Harry was happy to join and nearly jumped up.
Harry asked the children to raise their hands up if the word mental health scared them before he proceeded to talk about the stigma surrounding mental health.
The Duke told the children that mental health affects everyone in the world.
“The more you talk about it, the more you can kick it in the long grass.”
The prince also made the children accept that mental health is not such a bad thing and that they shouldn’t be scared to talk about it. He ended his speech with, “It is okay, not to be okay.”
When he handed the microphone to Meghan, she jokingly said, “Do you see why I married him? He’s so smart.”
Joyce Agbese, the Lightway Academy’s School Director, thanks Prince Harry for being honest about his mental health.
While on stage, the couples were accompanied by Brain, a student at Light Academy who also spoke about mental health.
“Both boys and girls have feelings and emotions they bottle up because they can’t really express it… it can lead to suicide,” he said.
While speaking to BBC News, Joyce Agbese, the Light Academy director, said that mental health is a topic not talked about in Nigeria to children.
She also thanked Prince Harry for his message to the students and pupils: “Speak up and speak out; don’t bottle things up.”
“He nailed it, basically yes. We want to encourage them to speak out, speak up, and express their emotions in the right way,” Ms Agbese said.
“When somebody this popular or this famous speaks about mental health, it makes people realise that it’s normal, and so they don’t have to be afraid to talk about it.”
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