The world may be caught up in our new favourite royal romance and potential engagement between a certain Captain Wales and actress Meghan Markle.
But as expected, it’s business as usual for Prince Harry.
And it’s the 33-year-old’s business to make the world a better place.
Off the back of his remarkable Invictus Games in Toronto, Prince Harry has launched another endeavour – a new partnership between the Ministry of Defence and his Royal Foundation.
The former solider believes “mental fitness” should be at the heart of armed forces’ training and support.
Princess Diana’s son described those who fought for their nation as “prized assets” which need to be nurtured.
Speaking at London’s Ministry of Defence, he addressed the audience, “My 10 years in the Army taught me a great deal. I learned about the true meaning of service, duty, resilience and dedication.”
“But in many ways I have learned more about the sacrifices our servicemen and women make for us all since I left the Army and continued my work with the Invictus Games.”
He continued, “Quite simply, these men and women are prized assets which need to be continually invested in. We surely have to think of them as high performance athletes, carrying all their kit, equipment and a rifle. Crucially, fighting fitness is not just about physical fitness. It is just as much about mental fitness too.”
The royal explained that the new initiative is “providing tools and information that will help everyone in the defense community to get ahead of some of these problems before they start.”
Harry was in the military for a decade, and from his first-hand experiences knows how important mental well-being is.
Harry’s amazing new project follows another remarkable effort from the Prince and his brother, Prince William and sister-in-law Duchess Kate.
The royal trio have launched a £2million fund to help improve mental health in the UK.
The funds, which come from their Royal Foundation, will go towards “a start-up for digital mental health innovation” to give the public access to help for mental health problems.
Prince William visited the Data Observatory at Imperial College London this week, where he shared his joy over a research project which measured the success of the Heads Together campaign that supported this year’s London Marathon.
The soon-to-be father-of-three was delighted that 14,000 people were studied by YouGov.
“I feel like it’s exam results day,” he laughed.
The study revealed an increased awareness of mental health between February and May this year following the royals’ campaign, with a total of 1.5 million more people talking about the subject. There was also an increase of 12% of people talking about their own mental health.
The study found that 68 per cent of people surveyed would now speak to a family member about a mental health issue.
“This also shows that support at home is quite key, isn’t it?”
Discussing the statistic that three quarters of suicides in the UK are men, he stated: “That’s still a worrying statistic though, it really is.”
“At the beginning, we were trying to understand why at home people weren’t sharing some of their problems. If we’ve at least made a big impression there we can work on the wider societal aspects.”
Before musing, “But I think it all has to start at home. If you can’t even have a conversation with your loved ones, there’s no way you’re going to go to HR at work.”
As a parent, he also wants to tackle the problem from the very beginning.
“You’d struggle to find a parent out there who wouldn’t want the well-being of their child to be taken care of at school.”
