Crown Princess Mary has spoken about her love for Greenland in a new interview with Danish magazine Billed Bladet.
The Crown Princess paid a visit to Nuuk, Greenland, at the end of August with the Mary Foundation. She sat down with a reporter from Billed Bladet on the first day of her three-day visit to talk about its progress and her work within the country.
“It is a very short but intense and very varied programme,” Mary said, talking about how she’d already carried out engagements with children and would carry out more with older children and adults as the visit continued.
During the short visit, Crown Princess Mary carried out engagements with Mælkebøtten, a combination activity centre, shelter and children’s crisis centre; the National Grief Centre as a grief line opened within the country; UNLEASH Innovation Lab to talk about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; and UNICEF Denmark’s offices in Greenland.
“It is very varied—from neglected children to young talented people who have to help the world solve big problems. So I will take that home with me to a large extent,” she clarified, saying how “the many experiences, the meeting with new people and old acquaintances, but also many new insights into the Greenlandic culture” have informed her work in the country.
In a speech at the UNLEASH Innovation Lab, the Danish Crown Princess spoke about young people pitching ideas to help solve problems behind the Sustainable Development Goals, saying: “From my experience, when you bring people together from different social and ethnic backgrounds, educational focus, attitudes and behaviours, fantastic things can happen. Diversity drives innovation. And as young people, you are not yet bound by ingrained habits and existing social and societal structures and norms. You are open, and you see possibilities instead of limitations.”
Crown Princess Mary has paid visits to Greenland frequently throughout her 18-year marriage and recalled that her first visit in 2004 captivated her. She recalled: “[F]rom the first time I was captivated by the beautiful and magnificent nature and at the same time by the very open, hospitable and warm-hearted population. And as with all relationships, it develops over time, and the more times you meet each other, the deeper it becomes.”
