Princess Charlene is lending her support to the creation of a rugby school in Ecuador, a first for the Latin American country.
Last week, her husband Prince Albert II received a cheque for €3,000 on behalf of the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation from Isabelle Bonnal, the Commissioner-General of the Department of National Education.
The event, organised by the Monégasque Association for Latin America, or the AMLA, brought together organisations and charities that will help to fund the first-ever rugby school in Ecuador. The rugby school is supported by the Asociación de Rugby de Pichincha, located in Quinto.
The AMLA is an organisation consisting of people of various Latin American nationalities, “with the initiative of sharing our customs and traditions with the Principality of Monaco, interacting and collaborating in turn with the different charities that work in pro of the Latin American countries,” per the organisation’s website.
The ALMA works to be “a reference point between the Principality and the member countries of Latin America, to develop synergies between both through socio-cultural exchange.”
In a statement shared on the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation’s South Africa branch website, they announced: “As well as working all over the world to combat drowning, the Princess Charlene Foundation strives to teach the values of sport to children. In their quest to share the importance of solidarity, discipline and respect, they have most recently turned to rugby. By building this school, the aim is to use the sport as a means to communicate all these different values to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Princess Charlene’s work with sports, particularly rugby, continues with the Monaco Rugby Exchange, a programme set up with South Africa’s Rugby Legends Association to allow young players between the countries “to visit and discover each other’s countries and culture, as well as play in an international tournament.”
Another rugby programme involves young players from the United States—where another branch of Princess Charlene’s Foundation is located—to play in Monaco at the Saint Devote Rugby Tournament in 2019.
