Diana's Charity Work and Patronages


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There are a lot of issues like demining these land mines that have been worked on by a lot of people long before Diana ever heard of just how bad these mines affected people. What happened with Diana is that once she heard about it and learned the facts and decided she wanted to do something about it, being who she was, this issue was brought to the attention of a multitude of people that perhaps hadn't realized the severity of the issue or even not had heard about it at all. It was the same with William and the ivory trade. Once he realized that something more should be done, he decided it was something he wanted to put his heart and soul into and being who he is, with United for Wildlife, he was able to greatly strengthen the effort and get a lot more people on board and involved working together to make a change.

Many problems exist and are being campaigned against to make a difference such as mental health, domestic abuse and sex crimes and a multitude of others that I'm sure we could name. Its when someone high profile such as a royal or a celebrity jumps on the bandwagon and speaks out that more people pay attention and want to work with the cause or support it. It makes all the difference in the world.
 
anbrida said:
It has been well reported that Diana had planned to visit China, though the purpose was not clear.

On June 23, 1997 Diana had a lunch with Tina Brown and Anna Wintour at the Four Seasons restaurant, New York City. They pledged that they would not disclose the contents of their conversation. However, obviously Tina Brown broke her words very soon. In her Sep 6,1997 Newyorker article, Tina Brown wrote a great deal about their conversation over that lunch. Especially, she wrote these:


Quote:
“I’d really, really like to go to China,” she (Diana) says. “I’m very good at sorting people’s heads out.” She says this straight-facedly, and I note that, like many stars with a gift for self-projection, she is almost wholly devoid of irony. But in her case the therapized phrases point to a quality of driven earnestness. It’s easy to understand how she could throw herself into a public role, and just as easy, sadly, to see why she would bore Prince Charles. [2]

And then in her book "The Diana Chronicles" (2007), Tina Brown wrote these:

Quote:
An overdose of public adoration had made her almost delusional. She told me over lunch that she thought she could resolve the conflicts of Northern Ireland. “I’m very good at sorting people’s heads out.” [3]
Click to expand...

What was the big story in the summer of 1997....
What was the big story on July 1 1997....

It was not Diana's birthday.

Look at the timing of her remarks, whether they were about Ireland or China.

On July 1, 1997 no matter what Diana did she would not have received the
same level of publicity that Prince Charles received.

So Diana wanted to visit China.

Let see what Prince Charles was doing in 1997.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g57WZ4zvHkI


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_handover_ceremony


anbrida said:
Diana visiting Red China, it would be a real big news, and would attract a lot of attention on a global scale.
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Seriously do you think Diana would have received any positive attention, if she visited China after Prince Charles participated in the handover of Hong Kong.

No I do not think so. She would have been a laughingstock. The tabloids would have had a field day.

She would have been ridiculed.
 
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Diana wasn't talking about getting on a plane to China the next day in the conversation with Tina Brown, who incidentally made money from Diana with a biography (not all critical) and magazine articles. If she had visited China several months afterwards, in the late autumn for instance, she would not have been a laughing stock, especially when campaigning on a serious issue like land mines.

There were many, many times when an appearance by Diana sucked the oxygen over the things Charles said and did, relegating them to well inside the pages of the newspapers of the day.
 
It was a RF poster who made the assumption that Diana wanted to visit China as part of a landmines campaign.

Diana, herself, made no mention of landmines or the reason she wanted to visit.
 
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Queen Camilla said:
It was a RF poster who made the assumption that Diana wanted to visit China as part of a landmines campaign.

Diana, herself, made no mention of landmines or the reason she wanted to visit.
Click to expand...


It is a book written by a Chinese in 2004 claiming that, right before her death, Diana had contacted the Red Cross of Hong Kong to arrange her visit to China to talk about Landmine. [1]

Sir David Tang said in many occasions that Diana had also asked him to arrange her visit to China. On the plane from southern France to Paris on Aug 30, Diana was still calling David Tang to check about the issue. [2]

Shortly after her death, the top official representative of Beijing in Hongkong, Ma Yu Zhen, said in a TV interview he was going to meet Diana when she was supposed to visit Hong Kong in Sep 1997. [3]

References:
[1] Su Fei, ``Beauty and Sadness: A true Diana", 1 June 2004. (苏菲，“一个真实的戴安娜”)
[2] "风中之烛十年未灭", 31 Aug 2007.
[3] "风流王妃：风采曾莅唐人街，知音更在香港岛 陆沪鹏 新浪博客", 30 July 2010.
 
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Queen Camilla said:
Seriously do you think Diana would have received any positive attention, if she visited China after Prince Charles participated in the handover of Hong Kong.

No I do not think so. She would have been a laughingstock. The tabloids would have had a field day.

She would have been ridiculed.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you would think Diana would have been a laughingstock if she visited China. If you read the eulogy the Chinese authority issued on her death, definitely they didn't treat her as a laughing stock; we simply didn't treat any guest of us as laughing stock. Actually, you can see they held high esteem of her.

I didn't have any clue why you would say she would be a laughing stock to visit China after Charles' attending of the handover of HongKong on July 1st, 1997. I assume you said this, because you think the British would hate Chinese because of the handover. Come on, the decision of handover was made in early 1980's. So by 1997, the British people had had long enough time to come to terms with this.

I actually think the British would be happy to see British presence returned to Hong Kong so quickly after the handover. You see, the handover just happened on July, then merely two months latter, in September, Diana would come to visit Hong Kong. It just like, British left, then British return immediately.
 
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Osipi said:
Hi Anbrida. Good to see you back in action here at TRF. I just wanted to let you know that your work that you've taken the time to compile from various sources on the life and times of Diana, Princess of Wales is appreciated. It is quite obvious that you admired her so much.

Many, many times when someone does a search about someone royal, what pops up is various links to threads here at TRF in regards to that royal. That's why I believe that TRF is not only an informative discussion forum but also serves as a vast archive of information that can be found in one place.

Once again, thank you! :flowers:
Click to expand...

Thank you for your nice words. :flowers:

But it is not only admiration which drove me to do all this work. There are a lot of coincidences happened on me, as a result they brought me into this research. I wanted to find out the truth, such that I can see whether those things I encountered were mere coincidences or, you might think I am crazy to say that, the will of a higher power. Honestly speaking, I want to see whether there is really a God, and whether there is afterlife.
 
I don't think that Diana would have been a laughingstock. Not at all. I can imagine her travelling the roads with many people lined up and clapping. :flowers:

anbrida said:
I don't understand why you would think Diana would have been a laughingstock if she visited China. If you read the eulogy the Chinese authority issued on her death, definitely they didn't treat her as a laughing stock; we simply didn't treat any guest of us as laughing stock. Actually, you can see they held high esteem of her.

.
Click to expand...
 
anbrida said:
I don't understand why you would think Diana would have been a laughingstock if she visited China. If you read the eulogy the Chinese authority issued on her death, definitely they didn't treat her as a laughing stock; we simply didn't treat any guest of us as laughing stock. Actually, you can see they held high esteem of her.

I didn't have any clue why you would say she would be a laughing stock to visit China after Charles' attending of the handover of HongKong on July 1st, 1997. I assume you said this, because you think the British would hate Chinese because of the handover. Come on, the decision of handover was made in early 1980's. So by 1997, the British people had had long enough time to come to terms with this.

I actually think the British would be happy to see British presence returned to Hong Kong so quickly after the handover. You see, the handover just happened on July, then merely two months latter, in September, Diana would come to visit Hong Kong. It just like, British left, then British return immediately.
Click to expand...

What is said about a person in a eulogy, especially when they die young is different than what was said about them while alive.

Diana was the one contacting people.Her actions and motives were being criticized.

Her visit to Pakistan and her interview in Le Monde newspaper were criticized. The Le Monde interview was published on August 27, 1997.

Any visit to a political region would have been criticized. Visiting Hong Kong after the handover would have made her look desperate for attention.

If she wanted to visit Hong Kong going in September would only have opened her up for criticism. After the fallout of the Le Monde interview any international visit would have opened her up for criticism and mockery.

She died a few days after the Le Monde interview. In this interview she describes the British press as "ferocious.

The British press would have been "ferocious" if she had visited Hong Kong.
 
No one knows whether or not Diana would have been criticized/mocked for visiting China, so it's pointless to keep going around and around. Furthermore, this whole discussion is off-topic. Let's get back on-topic, which is Diana's charity work and patronages.
 
One thing we do know is that Diana was to be in the area and a trip to China would not have been a stretch to do. I just remembered reading about the chrysanthemum that was named after Charlotte and recalled that there was a mention that Diana had an orchid named after her and that she was scheduled to fly out to Singapore to see it but died two weeks prior to the trip.

Unfortunately I cannot find an itinerary or purpose for going to Singapore at that time but I hardly think she would make the trip solely to view an orchid. Perhaps someone else remembers more than I do.

Prince William, Kate see Princess Diana orchid in Singapore - CBS News
 
i don't know if i'm posting in the right topic but i was skimming through this topic one night (i think it was this one anyway!) and i read that Diana took a child with Cerebral Palsy to the theatre and i'd like to read that link as i suffer from CP myself and the link was outdated thanks :)
 
Osipi said:
TDiana ever heard of just how bad these mines affected people. What happened with Diana is that once she heard about it and learned the facts and decided she wanted to do something about it, being who she was, this issue was brought to the attention of a multitude of people that perhaps hadn't realized the severity of the issue or even not had heard about it at all.

Many problems exist and are being campaigned against to make a difference such as mental health, domestic abuse and sex crimes and a multitude of others that I'm sure we could name. Its when someone high profile such as a royal or a celebrity jumps on the bandwagon and speaks out that more people pay attention and want to work with the cause or support it. It makes all the difference in the world.
Click to expand...
Of course there were many people who worked on the landmines issue before Diana did, but they werent getting the press coverage. SHE may not have known about it (any more than most people did) but once she did have someone approach her and ask for help with publicising the issue she really IMO threw herself into the work of doing this. Her work was valuable in pubclising the problem just as the work of other people who were trying to get them banned
 
Denville said:
Of course there were many people who worked on the landmines issue before Diana did, but they werent getting the press coverage. SHE may not have known about it (any more than most people did) but once she did have someone approach her and ask for help with publicising the issue she really IMO threw herself into the work of doing this. Her work was valuable in pubclising the problem just as the work of other people who were trying to get them banned
Click to expand...

The publicity was welcome but we really didn't need it at that point for the treaty. The conference was scheduled and negotiations on the final wording had already started before Diana got involved. There is not one country that signed the treaty because of Diana's involvement. IIRC, there was one country that pushed up its vote on the treaty after her death, but it was not a manufacturer or exporter of landmines, so it didn't make much difference.

In fact, we did get a lot of press coverage, although it obviously not as memorable. There were front page articles in major newspaper around the world, we had segments on 60 Minutes, Nightline, 20/20, which are huge news programs in the U.S. I know that the major news networks all over Europe had segments about it.

The campaign was unprecedented because relief agencies were the main impetus for an international treaty. That had never happened before. Our coalition distributed lesson plans for schools around the world and encouraged students to write their leaders. Our PR people actually did a good job.

After Diana's photo ops, there was an increase in donations, which is always welcome. The publicity lifted everyone's spirits, which is nice but not really necessary when you are committed to a cause. Immediately after the treaty was executed, most agencies turned their attention to the ban on cluster bombs, which was just as big of problem. That campaign was also successful even without all the press attention. That treaty has fewer signatories but the campaign is less mature than the landmine ban efforts.
 
I can tell you that very few people knew about the issue before Diana's involvement. I believe that it helped to push for public opinion to be on the side of getting rid of the mines..
 
Osipi said:
One thing we do know is that Diana was to be in the area and a trip to China would not have been a stretch to do. I just remembered reading about the chrysanthemum that was named after Charlotte and recalled that there was a mention that Diana had an orchid named after her and that she was scheduled to fly out to Singapore to see it but died two weeks prior to the trip.

Unfortunately I cannot find an itinerary or purpose for going to Singapore at that time but I hardly think she would make the trip solely to view an orchid. Perhaps someone else remembers more than I do.

Prince William, Kate see Princess Diana orchid in Singapore - CBS News
Click to expand...

In spite of the headlines in the article linked below I don't think that Diana had a trip to Singapore in the pipeline. The directors of the Botanic Gardens in Singapore had named a new orchid after Diana shortly before she died and they were going to present it to her when next she visited the Far East.

Jamie Lowther Pinkerton, William's then Private Secretary said in August 2012 when the Cambridges were going on their Far Eastern tour that they would visit the Botanic Gardens on September 11th and see the orchid Diana 'never had a chance to see in person....the intention was for the Princess to see it at some point.'

Duke of Cambridge to complete tour planned by Princess Diana - Telegraph
 
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When will the US actually sign the Treaty? It hasn't as yet according to my research.
 
Iluvbertie said:
When will the US actually sign the Treaty? It hasn't as yet according to my research.
Click to expand...

I sent you a PM.

It's unfortunate that some people insist on crediting Diana for the treaty to ban landmines. It is not only inaccurate but does a great disservice to those who worked on this issue for decades, particularly the men who lost limbs and even their lives, trying to remove landmines. Diana raised money, which was used for demining and to help victims--which certainly saved some lives. However, the treaty would have been executed, with the same signatories, even if Diana had never gotten involved.
 
Of course the Landmines issue was worked on by others before Diana became involved. No-one can deny that. However, especially in Britain, her championing of this cause brought it to the fore in the minds of the public. Decades later I can remember her visit to Angola through the photographs taken then. The Director General of the British Red Cross offered to be Diana's official escort in Angola when she asked if the Red Cross would sponsor and support her undertaking an overseas visit to raise awareness of the issue.

Just as today's royals work hard in the areas of mental health, HIV, wild life poaching and injured servicemen, this help is usually considered invaluable by workers in the field, and publicity and increased donations do make a difference.

Certainly, after Diana's death MPs considering the bill in the House of Commons during the final Reading and the last debates thought so. Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, and others paid tribute to her efforts.

Acknowledging that Diana did make a difference doesn't denigrate or minimise the devoted longterm work of others.

Landmines Bill passed as MPs pay tribute to Diana
 
This was something that touched her a lot - I doubt she set out to be seen as the major actor here - the photgraphs with the children tell their own tale. It was about awareness and she did what she could as a high profile person.
 
Curryong said:
Of course the Landmines issue was worked on by others before Diana became involved. No-one can deny that. However, especially in Britain, her championing of this cause brought it to the fore in the minds of the public. Decades later I can remember her visit to Angola through the photographs taken then. The Director General of the British Red Cross offered to be Diana's official escort in Angola when she asked if the Red Cross would sponsor and support her undertaking an overseas visit to raise awareness of the issue.

Just as today's royals work hard in the areas of mental health, HIV, wild life poaching and injured servicemen, this help is usually considered invaluable by workers in the field, and publicity and increased donations do make a difference.

Certainly, after Diana's death MPs considering the bill in the House of Commons during the final Reading and the last debates thought so. Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, and others paid tribute to her efforts.

Acknowledging that Diana did make a difference doesn't denigrate or minimise the devoted longterm work of others.

Landmines Bill passed as MPs pay tribute to Diana
Click to expand...

The issue for me is that crediting Diana with the Ottawa Treaty is analogous to saying that she is responsible for the development of AIDS treatment drugs because she was photographed holding hands with AIDS patients. I agree that Diana made a difference in helping inform people about how AIDS was transmitted, but she is not responsible for developing treatments.

I'm sure that there were many politicians trying to associate themselves with Diana at that time. She is closely associated with it because her photo ops occurred a few months before her tragic death. Her other charity work at that time was not high profile. She died at the end of August, less than two weeks before the Oslo conference convened.

The fact is that Diana was a late comer to the campaign and had no substantive influence. Influencing governments involves more than PR and photo ops. The campaign met with various governmental officials all over the world. The campaign also gathered background data and facts, and it is not something that you can look up on the Internet. In fact, the campaign actually provided the information people now read online. It is also necessary to go into these areas in order to help determine how to best distribute anti-mine resources.

These meetings often required going into very dangerous areas--without the security Diana had. Some people were volunteers and others were paid very little. All of them were very dedicated. They were among the most remarkable people that I have ever met.

Giving Diana credit for their work is simply wrong.
 
Obviously the Landmines campaign is very near to your heart and you are, of course, knowledgable and interested, invested in it, USRW. Good on you!

However, no-one on this thread is saying that Diana was solely responsible for the Ottowa Treaty being signed, (or for developing anti-HIV drugs for that matter.)

What high profile Royal person does do those things? Does William go out into the African wilderness to search out wild life poachers and kill them, and does Harry design prosthetic limbs, even though he is devoted to the cause of wounded ex service personnel? Kate doesn't work in laboratories helping to develop drugs to combat mental illness and depression. Crown Princess Mary of Denmark doesn't visit every school in her country five days a week to make sure no bullying occurs.

Royals are used by agencies and charities in the ways they can be of most use and help. In most cases it's by being Patron of a particular organisation, attracting donors and gaining much needed publicity for the cause.

Some royals adopt certain causes very enthusiastically and strive to make a difference in the best way they possibly can. In that way they become identified with them. Look at Harry with the Invictus Games. He gains praise for his work and kudos, but that doesn't mean he goes home after each Games and thinks 'Well, that's sorted for all wounded and maimed ex servicemen and women, then!" Nor did Diana do that with the AIDS causes she adopted very keenly and promoted heavily during her lifetime.

Diana wasn't spared for long enough to try and promote the cause of Landmines any further. It's clear she was interested though. In the short period of her life we're discussing she tried to do her part as a Royal (or ex royal); in other words she was effective in bringing publicity and donations to the cause, which was all that was required of her in her position.

I lived in Britain and in a Commonwealth country at the time and I can speak to the fact that land mines were brought to Joe and Joanna Public's notice in those countries, due to Diana, in a way that a dozen worthy people droning on about the issue on TV or in newspaper articles would never have achieved. That's just the way things are as far as the general public is concerned.

No-one expected, or asked, that Diana spend months in Africa or Asia detecting land mines in the field till they were all gone. That would take thousands of people many lifetimes. However, before her premature death she did what she could and if she had lived I'm sure she would have continued.
 
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Noone is crediting her with the Ottawa treaty, but she did do a lot to bring the issue to the notice of the public. Why do people have to denigrate her because she didn't work full time blowing up mines? Yes, there aer people who do that and its very admirable of them.. IMO its admirable of Diana to take up an issue which was controversial, which got her sharp criticism, and to take the chances of walking across a minefield. I don't see why people cannot see that many people played a part in the charity, and they do differnet things...and what she did helped a lot.. it does not take away from the efforts of others, and I'm sure that Diana didn't want credit for "being brave" or whatever, she just did the job that she was good at, ie bringing media attention to the issue, and helping people by talking to them and telling them that their suffering was not forgotten and that people were wrokign to help them...
 
:previous: Exactly. That is what members of the Royal Family do. The only difference is that they don't stray into political areas, which is what Diana unintentionally did in appearing to go against British government policy. Of course, if a person wants to split hairs, she was no longer an HRH at that time and so technically not royal.
 
well exactly. Of course the basics of the political side of it were nothing to do with diana; even if she'd wanted to, she could not have gotten involved in this.
 
It realy seem very sad to me that people feel they have to denigrate either Charles' work or Diana's. at their best they DID work together and complement each other, and I'm sure that they learned from each other, in a way. He said that she had shown him how to talk better to children, She had not known much about various issues when she marired him, and from him, she must have picked up some of the basics of learning about the background of a charity issue. IMO at first she was rather afraid of C's "learning" and being so "clever" and knowing about various issues, and was inclined to either find it boring or to shy away because she knew she didn't know much about it and was scared of hher ignorance being exposed.
Later on, I think she did realise that Charles as POW and she as Princess COULD make a bit of a difference on various social problems, and that to do that, she had to learn about the background a bit, she had to speak in public, and she tried her best to do that..
 
After the Her Royal Highness was removed from her, how soon did Diana, Princes of Wales, resign her patronage of some of her charities?
 
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