A Royal Advocate For Children.

A voice is a very powerful thing to have. Use it carelessly and you’ll end up in trouble. Bid your time and think carefully about the right situations to use that voice, and you become a beacon of strength for lots of people across the world. Everyone needs a voice, even children. When they can’t speak, they have their parents doing the talking for them. But then again, a parents intercession might only stop at the school management level or at the paediatrician’s desk.

With the fast rising rate of poverty and unstable situation in the UK, childrens mental health and wellbeing faces a threat, even with the increasing outcry for the government to do all in its power to improve children’s overall health and wellbeing.

Upon her marriage to Prince William, who is next in line to the throne after his father, The Prince of Wales, Catherine decided that her voice would be needed to champion the causes of children. But to make that voice strong enough to have an impact, confident enough to cause decision makers to stop and listen, she needed to put that voice on hold and get her research started. The more she researched, the more it impacted on the charities she chose to lend her patronage – Action on Addiction, EACH, Place To Be are just a few of her charities linked to children and young people. While solidifying her place as a Child Advocate, she lent her support to a few other charities and organisations – Children in Crisis, Child Bereavement, the Teenage Cancer Trust, Starlight Children’s Foundation and the UNICEF.

Eight years on, as this voice (which she has always had) gets stronger and louder, the Duchess of Cambridge has become a beacon of strength to families in Britain and young mothers the world over. Her Early Years Initiative and so far, all the research and projects we have seen her carry out as part of it, holds a promise of hope for thousands of children, especially vulnerable children everywhere. Think about the huge benefits of having such an initiative in every country of the world. For the Duchess of Cambridge though, charity starts at home. For how well will you be able to make an impact globally, when you don’t start with your family and home country? How will you be able to speak of your Early Years Initiative as a success when no one sees the huge benefits it has given to the people of the UK?

Catherine wanted to make a difference even in the smallest way, she wanted to learn and looked forward to helping people as much as she could.

With her future roles as Princess of Wales and Queen Consort looming ahead, this young woman, with the quiet power and silent strength, is just getting started.