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King Charles' coronation guest list includes this Pune-born architect
King Charles' Coronation: Sourabh Phadke joined the foundation’s Traditional Building Skills programme.
A Pune-based architect and teacher- Sourabh Phadke- has been named among the selected charity champions invited to attend the coronation ceremony of King Charles III. Reacting to the invitation, Sourabh Phadke said that he is still absorbing the news.
The 38-year-old was chosen for his association through the causes supported by the Prince’s Foundation- Charles' charity which was founded when he was Prince of Wales. Sourabh Phadke joined the foundation’s Traditional Building Skills programme where he expanded his repertoire by training as a stonemason.
“It's still sinking in and I don’t know what to expect considering I’ve never been to a Coronation before. It’s with that spirit in mind that I’m approaching it,” Sourabh Phadke said.
“It was an opportunity for me to become a student again and become part of the [Prince's Foundation] programme. I was really happy that I got the opportunity. Even though I’d done stonework in the past, I hadn’t trained as a stone mason,” he recalled.
“It could be houses, toilets, schools, anything that a community needed. It could be in deprived communities, schools, farmers, or women’s collectives. I basically lived where I was working and moved from place to place. The circumstances would differ widely but in some cases, we would reach a place and start building, let’s say a toilet in open land where there was no toilet, and we would camp outdoors. It taught me a lot,” he shared as per news agency PTI.
He further said, “Crafts and skills are opportunities to reflect. I might be building a toilet in India or working with a student on a project in the UK, but it’s still the same. We need to be able to respect everything in the same way – it can offer us the same joy and the same love."
