Prince Harry has resigned from his Sentebale charity after controversy arose within the top level of the organization.
Hello! Magazine reports that Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho released a joint statement explaining their surprise decision to step down as Sentebale's patrons. In the statement, the royals said, "[the] relationship between the charity's trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation."
Sentebale's internal situation is complicated for anyone who isn't familiar with the charity's inner workings. Prince Harry and Price Seeiso's joint statements show that the royals resigned to stand in solidarity with Sentebale's previous roster of trustees.
Sentebale's board of trustees left their own offices because of a spat with Sophie Chandauka, a Zimbabwe-born lawyer who currently serves as Sentebale's chair of the board of trustees.
Chandauka recently claimed that she plans to sue the other trustees who served as Sentebale's leaders until recently.
The severity of this controversy should be taken quite seriously, as the charity is now under investigation according to the Charity Commission.
How did we get here?
Words cannot describe how heartbroken Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso must be, as they founded Sentebale to honor their mothers.
The royals' joint statement claims that the board of trustees asked Chandauka to step down from her position as chair of the board of trustees. Allegedly, this was done "in the best interest of the charity [while] keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind."
Clearly, Chandauka took the trustees' request the wrong way, and her subsequent threat to sue the other members of the board has made Sentebale's upper hierarchy untenable.
Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso won't be taking their charity's controversy quietly, however. The royals pledged to "[share] all of [their] concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about." This means we should be getting updates about this story fairly soon.
The recent developments within the charity are disappointing to say the least. Just last year, Prince Harry made a visit to Lesotho to celebrate the country's 58th year of independence and collaborate with Lesotho's Royal Family for a multi-day event.
Harry's multi-day collaboration aimed to provide new skills and knowledge to Lesotho's citizens so they could improve their competitiveness in the local and international economy. Some of the job skills covered during the event were catering, hair styling, and dressmaking.
The solutions Harry and Lesotho's Royal Family promoted during the multi-day event were quite practical in retrospect. I hope the same type of practicality can prevail as Sentebale sorts out its administrative issues.