British Prince Harry has quit as a patron of Sentebale, a British charity he set up to help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana, after a dispute between trustees and the chair of the board that he called devastating.
Harry, the younger son of King Charles, co-founded Sentebale in honour of his mother Princess Diana in 2006, nine years after she was killed in a Paris car crash.
DAILY POST reports that Sentebale means “forget-me-not” in the local language of Lesotho in southern Africa.
Co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, as well as the board of trustees, joined Harry in leaving Sentebale until further notice amid a dispute with chair Sophie Chandauka, who has reported the trustees to Britain's Charity Commission.
“It is devastating that the relationship between the charity's trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation,” Harry and Seeiso said in a joint statement published by British media on Wednesday.
Harry, who lives in California with his wife Meghan and two children, was said to have stopped working as a member of the royal family in 2020.
He has reportedly been involved in charitable causes in Africa for many years and visited Nigeria last year.
The joint statement said that the trustees had acted in the best interests of the charity in asking the chair to step down.
“Although we may 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,” it added.
Meanwhile, Sentebale said it had not received resignations from its royal patrons.
In a statement, Chandauka said she would continue to perform her role.
“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct,” she said.
