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British Royals

The Diana Award 2021 to be presented at her childhood home

The Diana Award will be presented at the childhood home of the late Diana, Princess of Wales later this year.

Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, will welcome winners of the 2021 Legacy Awards to the family home at Althorp House on 9 December for an awards ceremony. In total, 20 young people from around the world will be honoured for their humanitarian work.

“Hosting the Legacy Awards at Diana, Princess of Wales’ family home is especially poignant as we mark what would have been her 60th birthday,” said Tessy Ojo, the Award’s Chief Executive, in a report on their official website. 

“In a year that has seen young people’s lives disrupted by the Pandemic it is even more important that we honour, celebrate but also invest in those young people from across the world, who through their selfless trailblazing efforts have changed lives in their communities. We are incredibly grateful to both Lord Spencer for hosting this event as well as Gilead Sciences, who for the third year running, are sponsoring the Legacy Awards.”

The winners will be selected this month by a panel of judges that include the Earl Spencer and other prominent people.

The Legacy Award is presented every two years to “young leaders, visionaries and role models from across the world, who have demonstrated their ability to inspire and mobilise new generations to service their communities, as Princess Diana believed they could,” per the Award’s website.

Its inaugural presentation took place in 2017, and Diana’s sons, the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex presented the award.

Winners of the Legacy Award must have first won a Diana Award—an annual award that rewards social and humanitarian work by people aged nine to 25—in the two years between award ceremonies. Once they win, they are admitted into a programme that “provides them with the opportunity to enhance their skills in four key areas; leadership, community development, social entrepreneurship and technology for good.”

The Diana Award was established in 1999 by the British government as a way to honour Diana’s legacy. In 2006, it became an independent charity. In their 21 years, over 49,000 young people have been recognised for their social and humanitarian work.

About author

Jess Ilse is the Assistant Editor at Royal Central. She specialises in the British, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Royal Families and has been following royalty since Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. Jess has provided commentary for media outlets in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Jess works in communications and her debut novel THE MAJESTIC SISTERS will publish in Fall 2024.