Meeting with the Princess Astrid of Belgium by Faiths Act Fellow Sara

I never thought that out of all the random things I would be doing for this fellowship, one of them would be meeting Princess Astrid of Belgium.

It started when I was on a phone call with the malaria caucus trying to organize an event on April 20^th for World Malaria Day. When Senator Mobina Jaffer mentioned that the Princess of Belgium is interested in eradicating malaria and wants to meet with the malaria caucus, I imagined a woman wearing a tiara, white gloves coming to Ottawa to drink tea with us with our pinkies up and making superficial conversation. I never imagined how much a passionate and sweet woman she would be!

The day before the meeting with the princess, I asked senator Jaffer if I was able to bring some of our young leaders who are working on the eradication of malaria in the city of Ottawa to meet with the princess. Senator Jaffer graciously responded with “yes of course! It is important that young people are there so that we are able to pass on our knowledge to them.”

The next day, a Hindu, a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim and a Humanist all dressed up headed to parliament hill to meet with Princess Astrid of Belgium.

The room was a big room with a rectangular table around it; our young leaders were sitting in the audience section. Senator Jaffer put me to sit beside Tiffany from Spread the Net at the round table with members of parliament and different members of organizations that were  working to eradicate malaria.

The princess then arrived with her assistants behind her; I introduced myself and shook her hand. She looked me right in the eye and smiled. She sat down, everyone went around the room to introduce themselves and then the opening remarks began. Buy a net, Spread the net, Canadian Red Cross all took turns speaking about the work that they’re doing to eradicate malaria. Then the Princess made her remarks about how much she respects Canada as a country that will be holding the G8 this summer and how proud she is of the different organizations working in the fight against malaria.

Then, question and answer period started with the Princess. I really wanted to ask her a question but knew that time was restricted. Three people asked a question and I though okay! Here is my chance! I looked Mr. Patrick Brown who was chairing the event and whispered and made hand gestures that I have a question to ask. He looked a bit surprised but when the previous question was answered, he looked at me and said “someone from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation has a question”.

I took a deep breath very quietly and I said “thank you so much for you all of your kind words Majesty. I am so happy that you are here in my home of Canada and you are such an inspiration. Malaria is an issue that I deeply care about. Last year I travelled to Tanzania; I was at the Training Centre for international health, then I saw went to Bagamoyo where vaccine trials were taking place and then I ended my trip with hope at Zanzibar where malaria has been almost completely eradicated. When I went to a school in Tanzania, I asked a lot of the youth there what they wanted to be when they grew up and a lot of them said “I want to be a doctor! I want to be a politician!” they all wanted to make their country a better place just like me. I thought to myself that we’re so similar and we have so much potential but it’s so unfortunate that their potential could be lost because of malaria. My question to you, your majesty is about the role of youth. I am only 20 years old but the eradication of malaria is an issue that I will care about for the rest of my life. How do we get more youth involved in this issue? How do we ensure that all of your information and expertise about malaria is passed on to my generation? Also, as you are aware the last Millennium Development Goal is global partnerships-how can Canadian youth and Belgium youth work together to eradicate malaria?”

The whole room gasped in shock when I said I was 20 years old and the whole room was silent when my question was finished.  Then, Professor Awa Marie Coll-Seck took the microphone and responded “first of all, I want to applaud you and congratulate you as a twenty year old for being so energetic and caring for ending deaths due to malaria. Your question is very important because we need more youth like you who have a passion to end malaria. Twenty years from now, I am not going to care but it is your responsibility to eradicate malaria if it’s still around at that time. It is important for youth in different countries to connect together and use technology to spread awareness. When this meeting is over please come and speak to our external relations manager to seek possible opportunities for Canadian and Belgium youth to work together-this is actually a very good idea.”

When the meeting was over, Elyse and I went up to the princess to speak with her. She told me that she wants to congratulate Elyse and me for our work on malaria eradication. She said that she has children our age and she can completely understand our zeal for wanting to do something better for the world.

Senator Mobina Jaffer ended the meeting with a quote that talked about the importance of team work in achieving a goal. She started to tear up which made the Princess tear up which caused me to tear up and I left that meeting with a sense of hope. There is a lot of work to be done to eradicate malaria but this dialogue between Belgium and Canada was the first step leading to action and if that action means youth being in involved with malaria work, then I am more than willing to take that project on.