A Decade Of Giving Back

As Crown Princess Mary and her family enjoy a private holiday back in Australia, Her Royal Highness talks to Juliet Rieden about 10 years of the groundbreaking Mary Foundation, her deeply felt belief that everyone needs “a solid dose of empathy” and how this Tassie-born royal found her place in Denmark.

- Juliet Rieden

In 2004, in honour of the wedding of HRH Crown Prince Frederik to Australia’s own Mary Donaldson, a 1.1 million kroner ($176,000) gift was raised in Denmark and Greenland. As wedding gifts go, this was a pretty generous one and certainly a sign of how much faith Danes had in their new Crown Princess. That trust was paid back in spades when three years later the new royal put the people’s funds to work and launched her Mary Foundation.

HRH The Crown Princess’s vision was to create a powerful initiative that gave something back to Denmark, a program of projects that would tangibly help the most vulnerable and tackle key social problems. Under an overarching mantel of combating social isolation, based on the belief that everyone has a right to belong, the Mary Foundation has identified and developed around 10 projects within three focus areas of bullying and well-being, domestic violence and loneliness.

“The last 10 years have been a rewarding and challenging journey,” Crown Princess Mary tells The Weekly. “We have worked hard and in collaboration with experts and partners have established the Mary Foundation. That our efforts can help to improve people’s lives and give them a sense of hope for the future, gives all of us at the Mary Foundation a sense of fulfilment and pride.

“However, today I am more convinced than ever that our work has only just begun. When working with social issues, you quickly find out that the more you learn, the more complex it becomes − and the more humble you get when it comes to creating lasting changes and securing long-term impact.”