Sentebale was created in 2006 to help young people in areas of health, including HIV and AIDS, as well as wealth inequity and climate resilience.
Prince Harry has resigned as a patron of the African charity he founded in the memory of his late mother, after a fallout between the trustees and the chairperson.
Set up in 2006, Sentebale was created to help young people in the southern African nations of Lesotho and Botswana in areas of health, including HIV and AIDS, as well as wealth inequity and climate resilience.
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The charity’s co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, also quit as patron of Sentebale, which means “forget me not” in the local language Sesotho, bringing to an end their association with the charity.
The pair originally set up Sentebale to honor their late mothers, Britain’s Princess Diana and Lesotho’s Queen Mamahato.
They took the decision after the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board “broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation,” the pair said in a joint statement to Britain’s Press Association news agency.
Sentebale said in a statement Wednesday that it had not received resignations from Harry and Seeiso.
Harry’s patronage of Sentebale was among his remaining private roles that he retained after stepping down as a working member of Britain’s royal family.
The charity’s website lists Sophie Chandauka as its chair, saying she assumed her role in July 2023. She is also listed as the co-founder of a Texas-based biotechology company, Nandi Life Sciences.
Without naming Chandauka, Harry and Seeiso said Sentebale’s trustees had asked the charity chair to step down, “while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind.” They did not elaborate why the chair had been asked to step down from their position.
In turn, the chair sued the charity “to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship,” their statement said.
Defending her position, Chandauka said in a statement Wednesday that Sentebale was “not a vanity project from which I can resign when I am called to account,” adding that she must “focus on fundraising.”
“Beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir — and the coverup that ensued,” she said.
“What’s transpired is unthinkable,” Harry and Seeiso said, adding they will raise their concerns with Britain’s Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales.
A spokesperson for the the Charity Commission for England and Wales said in a statement that it was “aware of concerns about the governance of Sentebale.”
“We are assessing the issues to determine the appropriate regulatory steps,” they said.
As for Harry and his Lesothan counterpart, their statement said that while they were “no longer be Patrons, we will always be its founders, and we will never forget what this charity is capable of achieving when it is in the right care.”
