HRH Prince Charles has given a private donation to the Peres Centre for Peace and Innovation. The donation comes a few months after his first official visit to Israel on behalf of the British government to attend the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem, at the invitation of the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Founded by Shimon Peres in 1996, the Peres Center is a nonprofit NGO with the mission of "promoting a prosperous Israel, nurturing and highlighting Israeli innovation, and paving the way for shared-living between all of Israel's citizens and lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors," according to the center's website.
“We were honored to host the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge in Israel in past years," British Ambassador to Israel Neil Wigan said. "This private donation demonstrates the impact of those visits and the importance of the relationship between Israel and the UK.”
“It is a great honor to be the first Israeli non-profit to receive support from a member of the Royal Family," Chemi Peres, chairman of the Peres Center, said. "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’ generosity will help ensure that the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation continues Shimon Peres’s legacy of building a better future for all people."
"Especially in the midst of a global pandemic, it is important to reach beyond borders for the sake of a better tomorrow. I thank His Royal Highness for joining hands with us,” continued Peres.
Prince Charles also attended the late Peres’s funeral in late 2016, when he then expressed his great admiration of Peres’s work for peace, and his legacy.
Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, met with the Peres Centre’s senior staff and Jewish and Arab Children at the Centre’s Sport in the Service of Peace programs during his first official visit to Israel in 2018. His trip marked the first time a member of the British royal family had made an official visit to the land which Britain governed under a League of Nations mandate from 1920 to 1948.