Fun fact: when then-Meghan Markle became engaged to Prince Harry in 2017, they made her give up all of her charity and humanitarian positions. In 2016, Meghan became an ambassador for World Vision Canada, and she made international trips to Rwanda and India on behalf of World Vision. She was also a UN women’s advocate. She resigned from both roles in November or December 2017. But that didn’t stop the Times from announcing this week that “Meghan’s charity accused of racism and sexism.” She hasn’t worked there in eight years! And this is solely about World Vision’s British arm.
A children’s charity for which the Duchess of Sussex is a global ambassador has denied allegations of racism and sexism. Meghan, 44, has been involved with World Vision since 2016, the year she met Prince Harry. She has been on trips, including to Rwanda and India, to see its work. A photograph of Meghan hugging a child during the visit to Rwanda became famous, and the charity praised her as a “true humanitarian” who would bring “vast energy” to her royal work, following the announcement of her engagement.
The Charity Commission is assessing a complaint that the international charity’s British arm is an allegedly “toxic” and “hostile” workplace. Complaints of racism, sexism and homophobia have allegedly been “ignored, silenced or inadequately handled” by senior leadership.
World Vision UK denies the allegations but has filed a serious incident report with the regulator following claims by the Third Sector website, which said it interviewed 11 current and former staff. Third Sector claimed that the charity’s human resources department confused two black female employees, that the names of non-white staff were mispronounced and that their accents were imitated by colleagues. Female employees allegedly complained of being patronised in meetings and the charity’s equity, diversity and inclusion group was allegedly told that “anti-LGBT staff members need to be allowed to have space too”.
The complaint claims that legal non-disclosure agreements were “routinely used to silence staff leaving after negative experiences”. The charity said the allegations were false and had been made by a “small number” of former employees. It is going through a restructuring that is expected to involve the redundancy of 60 of the 200 staff.
World Vision alleges that at least eight senior staff members have left over the past few months after being forced to step down or because they felt uncomfortable under its leadership.
The charity said in a statement: “World Vision UK has contacted the Charity Commission and while any member of the public can make a complaint to them, there is no investigation against the charity. If the commission contacts us in relation to any complaint, we will of course co-operate fully. World Vision UK operates by the highest standards set by the Charity Commission. Our processes are devoted to meeting those high standards across all of our operations. The allegations we have been made aware of by Third Sector are false and are thought to be sourced from a small number of employees who have left the organisation. Our staff are extremely important to us. We provide various mechanisms for dealing with any staff complaints and if these are upheld, we act immediately to put things right and take action.”
To be clear, this report A) completely lies about Meghan’s on-going involvement with World Vision, B) fails to note that Meghan resigned from the CANADIAN arm of World Vision in 2017, C) tries to associate Meghan with a charity being accused of racism and sexism, and D) completely ignores the fact that the senior managers of World Vision UK were mistreating Black staffers, much in the same way the Windsors were being racist, sexist a–holes to Meghan. It also feels like yet another example of how the British press, aided by the Windsors themselves, will not stop until all of Harry and Meghan’s charitable patronages are in disarray or “taken away” from them.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
