Princess Diana: life and legacy

Speech

The Passion of a Princess

It is rare in today's world for leaders -- true leaders -- to emerge and set standards for how other people ought to be treated. People who take risks are few and far between. Yet, sometimes a person who has been lucky in life has a passion for humanity that is not dampened by the criticism of the media. They take the necessary steps to use any influence they have to help others. Diana, Princess of Wales, was one of those people.

Like any royal or famous wedding, Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles brought incredible media attention. It would have been easy for her to casually enjoy her wealth and status like many other famous people. Instead, Diana became interested in how she could help others. Her charity work frequently focused on children, and often on helping those who, without people like her, would live painfully and briefly.

Diana had no intention of ignoring the painful things in the world. In fact, she made incredible efforts to change things for the better with little regard for her own image. Her selflessness was obvious many times over. In the eighties, during the grip of the AIDS panic, Diana was one of the first celebrities to be photographed holding the hand of a man who was dying of AIDS. At a time when children who were infected were shunned and people were afraid to help them, Diana took a stand and comforted a dying man. The sort of personal integrity it takes for someone to act as Diana did in that case defined her as a human being.