Sarah, Duchess of York

The Duchess is a co-producer on the film The Young Victoria. The world premiere was in the UK in March and has since been released in Canada, Spain, France and Australia amongst other territories. It was the closing film at the Toronto Film Festival. The Duchess has written two books on the subject, Travels with Queen Victoria and Victoria and Albert: Family Life at Osborne House.

She has written several other books including What I Know Now: Lessons Learned The Hard Way; a 12 book series called Helping Hands with Lloyds Pharmacy and a five book children’s series about the adventures of Little Red. She has also written another children’s book Tea for Ruby published by Simon and Schuster, about a little girl who tries to perfect her manners in time for tea with the Queen -- which went to number two on the New York Times best seller list in 2008.

Handmade Films, the UK and US based entertainment company, recently acquired the animation rights to the Little Red series and Tea for Ruby.

The Duchess recently visited the White Ribbon Alliance (known locally as the Safe Motherhood Network Federation or SMNF) and CARE in Nepal. During her visit the Duchess, who launched the White Ribbon Alliance’s Million Mums campaign in the UK, met the Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Kumar Nepal. Her visit highlighted the vital work of the White Ribbon Alliance to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal Five to prevent the needless toll of maternal deaths, ahead of his attendance at the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

In 1993 she founded Children In Crisis, and remains active in its mission to provide aid and education to forgotten children around the world. She is currently spearheading its 15th anniversary activity to raise £10 million over the next four years to enable a further 250,000 children in post-conflict countries to go to school. To date CIC has donated £18.5 million to projects around the world, trained 16,000 children and supported the education of one million children.

She is a long-standing patron to a number of British charities, including the Teenage Cancer Trust, The African Caribbean Leukemia Trust and the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She also supports and works with Mental Disability Rights International and CARE International.

From 1997-2007 she served as U.S. spokesperson for Weight Watchers International, Inc. and during that time she distinguished herself as a passionate wellness advocate and proponent for healthy weight-loss and weight management. She was a founding supporter of The American Cancer Society’s “Great American Weigh In,” an annual campaign aimed at raising awareness of the link between excess weight and cancer. She was also a voluntary spokesperson for the American Heart Association. In 2006 she established the Sarah Ferguson Foundation in New York to fund programmes that promote education and wellness worldwide.

The Duke and Duchess of York have two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie York. The Duke and Duchess divorced amicably in 1996 after 10 years of marriage and the couple are frequently cited as a model for civilised divorce and successful co-parenting.