Prince Harry mixes in to help Aids orphans

Published on Tuesday 8 July 2008 22:16

RED-FACED with exertion, Lieutenant Wales helps push wheelbarrows full of cement to build a wheelchair ramp for a school for disabled children.

The image is one of a set released yesterday showing Prince Harry as he spends three weeks with more than 20 army comrades from the Blues and Royals in the southern African country of Lesotho. Another shows him playing football.

The soldiers, supporting the prince's Sentebale charity, are helping local labourers renovate the Thuso Centre in Butha Buthe, about two hours' drive from the capital, Maseru.

And yesterday he spoke of his pride at the work his charity is doing for Aids orphans.

He said: "Everything here is just so positive and fantastic. This is the only mentally handicapped school in Lesotho and once the project is finished we hope to make another in the centre and one in the south. As long as we can keep funding (the projects] we can make a massive, massive difference."

The troops, with whom Harry fought in Afghanistan earlier this year, made an epic drive through South Africa and Namibia to Lesotho last week. They slept, cooked and washed in their Land Rovers.