Harry and Meghan join Spanish celebrity chef to offer India Covid aid

JUST days before announcing the safe arrival of their second child Lilibet Diana, Duke and Duchess of Sussex Harry and Meghan revealed they had joined forces with a Spanish celebrity chef to provide emergency aid in Covid-stricken India.

José Andrés – who famously pulled out of a contract to run a restaurant in Trump Towers in response to the former US leader's comments about Mexican people, and who offered a job to a dinner lady fired for giving a free school lunch to a little boy whose parents had no money – has been in the eye of the hurricane, literally, whenever natural disasters have struck, and handed out food parcels to government workers left without their wages after Trump shut down his administration.

He runs the charity World Central Kitchen, set up 11 years ago, and his hands-on work – evidenced by videos of himself being battered by a hurricane in the Bahamas – has led to a number of his followers in the US, Spain and beyond calling for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, the Asturias-born gourmet chef, who has lived in the USA for over 26 years, is about to become even more famous beyond his two countries: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, through their own charitable foundation Archewell – named after their two-year-old son Archie – have joined forces with Andrés to set up a Community Relief Centre in India.

According to the couple's press release on the project, the number of cases of Covid-19 in India has broken the 25 million barrier – and in the 24 hours leading up to the Sussexes' announcement, the sub-continent had reported 260,000 new cases and 4,329 deaths.

But the data release may even represent just a fraction of the real figures, which could well be much higher, Harry and Meghan said.

The Centre has been created to focus on the 'long-term needs' of local communities – it has opened in Mumbai (Bombay), one of India's largest cities, mainly because this is where the non-profit organisation Myna Mahila is based, a foundation which works for women's health and job opportunities, and one which Meghan Markle has been supporting for some time.

Centres such as the one launched by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and José Andrés are aimed at 'providing relief and strength', and after the Covid-19 crisis is over, could be used for other disasters, such as an emergency kitchen to keep local people fed, as a hospital or medical centre, as a mass vaccination centre or, 'during quieter times', for distributing food and medicine or as schools, medical clinics, or even a community centre for families to meet in, the press release explains.

It is one of three of its kind the Archewell Foundation and World Central Kitchen have pledged to set up – the other two are on the islands of Dominica and Puerto Rico.

Barely two weeks after announcing this joint relief scheme, the California-based couple revealed they had become parents for the second time, to a little girl – her first name, Lilibet, is the nickname Queen Elizabeth II is known as to those closest to her, including her late husband, Prince Philip, and her middle name, Diana is, naturally, that of the Princess of Wales, meaning 'Baby Sussex' carries a joint tribute to Harry's mother and grandmother.