Princess of Wales to Visit Reggio Emilia on Early Childhood Mission

Catherine, Princess of Wales, travelled to Reggio Emilia for a two-day solo working visit that put early childhood development, not pageantry, at the center of the itinerary. The trip, on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 May, was framed as a high-level fact-finding mission as The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood widened its reach beyond Britain.

Kensington Palace said Catherine was “very much looking forward” to seeing first-hand how the Reggio Emilia approach creates environments where nature and loving human relationships support children’s development. She was expected to meet educators, parents, children, local representatives and business leaders, a roster that underlined the visit’s policy and institutional focus rather than its ceremonial one.

The visit also carried diplomatic weight. Reuters reported it was Catherine’s first overseas engagement since cancer treatment, and several reports said it was her first official foreign visit in more than three years, since her last overseas royal appearance in Boston in December 2022. Reggio Emilia said the trip marked a significant next step for the early childhood centre as it expanded internationally, giving the monarchy a visible platform on a subject that sits at the intersection of education, family policy and public investment.

Reggio Emilia matters because the city’s educational model is not a slogan but a global reference point. Reggio Children says the city’s municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools are known throughout Italy and the world, and that the philosophy rests on the idea that children are active learners with rights and “a hundred languages” of expression. The approach grew out of postwar civic sacrifice, when local residents, especially women, sold scrap metal from abandoned German military equipment, including a tank, to help finance some of Italy’s first nursery schools.

The movement is closely associated with Loris Malaguzzi, born in Correggio on 23 February 1920, whose name remains central to the educational tradition Reggio Emilia exports worldwide. Mayor Marco Massari said Catherine would receive the city’s highest distinction, the Primo Tricolore, a civic honour that gave the visit a local seal of approval as well as international visibility.

Catherine launched The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in June 2021 to raise awareness of the transformative impact of the early years. In Reggio Emilia, that work was tied to a concrete model with international credibility, allowing the modern monarchy to project influence through a social issue with measurable public value.