Harry, Meghan announce relief centre in Mumbai to fight covid-19

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have announced a disaster relief center to be built in Mumbai to help people battle Covid-19 as the couple marked their third anniversary earlier this week.

A Community Relief Centre will be built in collaboration with World Central Kitchen (WCK), the couple said. Announcing the plans on their official website Archewell, the Sussexes promised the proposed centre will “provide relief and resilience as well as healing and strength.”

“Archewell Foundation and World Central Kitchen will establish our latest community relief center in Mumbai, India, which is also home to Myna Mahila, an Indian organization focused on women's health and employment opportunities that The Duchess of Sussex has long supported,” the website says.

The joint effort with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's nonprofit Archewell Foundation aims to develop a series of relief centers in regions of the world that are prone to climate disasters.

Mumbai’s Community Relief Centre will be the third of its kind with the first two announced in Dominica and Puerto Rico. It will be equipped with a kitchen like this one installed in Dominica, to help feed the poor, unwell and destitute.

During future crises, these centres can be quickly activated as emergency response kitchens or vaccination sites and through calmer times they can serve as food distribution hubs, schools, clinics, or community gathering spaces for families, the Archewell Foundation said.

The announcement of the Mumbai relief centre comes after the couple demanded the equal distribution of Covid vaccines around the world and backed US president Joe Biden's calls for big pharma companies to waive vaccine patents for poorer countries.

Earlier this month they wrote letters to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Norovax to 'temporarily suspend' intellectual property rights to help those in developing countries gain access to jabs.