SEATTLE — Meghan Markle, a 36-year-old actress from Los Angeles, has captured the world’s attention since her engagement to Prince Harry last November. Markle has shifted her efforts from acting to becoming a productive member of the British royal family. Since the engagement, she has stepped down from her role in the TV show Suits, but her passion for helping underprivileged children remains intact. Even with the tremendous commitments associated with her whirlwind life, Meghan Markle advocates for the impoverished.

Markle has stood up for what she believes in from a young age. At 11, she wrote a letter to the First Lady about an advertisement that she thought was sexist. Her words caused enough of a stir to cause the advertisement to be changed. Since then, she has expanded her efforts to address global issues. Meghan Markle advocates for the impoverished by supporting initiatives to improve education, healthcare and empowerment for women and girls. She is a U.N. Women’s Advocate, like fellow actress Emma Watson, and has given speeches in front of the U.N. concerning gender equality around the world. She has also given a speech with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about sexism.

The royal-to-be has also written many essays concerning global equality. Markle wrote a thought-provoking piece for Time in 2017 about menstruation around the world. She discussed how millions of women and girls do not have access to female sanitary products, and how they are unable to pursue education because of the stigma. Markle pointed out how this “perpetuate[s]the cycle of poverty” and called for policy changes around the globe to address this issue. In the same vein, she works with the Myna Mahila Foundation, an organization that employs women to create sanitary products.

Markle has also traveled around the globe to do humanitarian work. As an ambassador of World Vision, she traveled to Rwanda in 2016 to assist with its clean water initiative. She spoke with the people of the war-torn country and was inspired to advocacy. Markle also traveled to India to work on a variety of projects designed to empower girls in their education. These projects included building a separate bathroom for girls and providing them with bicycles so they could get to school safely.

While Markle has suffered considerable harassment in the media as a result of her association with Prince Harry, she is adamant that fame is a gift because it gives her a platform to help others. She has vocalized her belief that a responsibility to advocate for the impoverished goes hand in hand with celebrity. Markle is an excellent example of an individual who maximizes their position in life to help others. As long as Meghan Markle advocates for the impoverished through her royal platform, she will doubtless leave the world a better place than how she found it.

– Julia McCartney

Photo: Flickr