Two days before the coronation of Charles III, the British journalist Louise Ekland investigates the Prince’s Trust, a solidarity fund created by the prince in 1976.
In 1976, in a boiling social context and a United Kingdom affected by mass unemployment and violent demonstrations, Prince Charles created a charitable foundation, the Prince’s Trust, to finance the studies of Britons of modest origin. In almost fifty years, this foundation claims to have helped more than a million young people. It is one of Britain’s largest charities with an annual budget of €90 million.
Among the beneficiaries of this foundation, personalities known today as Idris Elba or the group Muse, but also Louise Ekland, author of this report, who then dreamed of becoming a dancer… She tells her career and how she obtained Prince’s Trust a scholarship funding one-third of his tuition at a prestigious musical theater school at Epson.
Nineteen charitable organizations under the aegis of Charles
Charles created a total of 19 charities which he still chairs today. In particular, it supports the preservation of heritage, entrepreneurship or craftsmanship, for a budget of 120 million euros thanks to private donations. In 2021, British journalists discovered that among the donors of the various foundations of the prince are certain cumbersome personalities, such as in 2013 a member of the family of Osama Bin Laden, or a Saudi businessman suspected of having obtained a title of “Commander of the British Empire” in exchange for a donation.
Where does Charles’ desire to help his subjects come from? Is this a way for him to prepare his accession to the throne? The British journalist now based in France returned to her native country and met Elizabeth Buchanan, the Prince’s former private secretary, who notably took care of his relations with the Prince’s Trust between 1998 and 2008, and the current president of this Jonathan Townsend Foundation.
A report by Louise Ekland, Adrian Jaouen, Marianne Getti and Thomas Lhoste for FTV Presse broadcast in “Correspondent” the 4th of 2023.
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