The Lesotho children’s centre run by Sentebale, the charity set up by Prince Harry in honour of his mother, was once flush with life.
Until recently, more than 700 children with HIV headed to its state-of-the-art facilities for “life-changing” residential camps each year.
It is alleged the site has been “effectively mothballed” amid a funding crisis that bled the charity’s reserves dry.
The charity’s “flagship” holiday camps at the Mamohato Children’s Centre, in Lesotho, have ground to a halt and staff there told to work from home to save costs.
The charity has made redundancies to try to steady the ship, and in total costs have been cut by 25 per cent since March.
The regulator “criticised all parties to the dispute for allowing it to play out publicly” and said it had “severely impacted the charity’s reputation and risked undermining public trust in charities more generally”.
• Prince Harry unhappy after watchdog criticises all sides in Sentebale row
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at an April 2024 polo fundraiser for Sentebale
YAROSLAV SABITOV/PA ARCHIVE
Chair’s awkward viral moment with Meghan
The seeds of the crisis began after Sophie Chandauka, a Zimbabwean-born lawyer, was appointed chair in 2023.
There was a hint of the trouble to come in April 2024, when the Duchess of Sussex bounced on stage to hand a polo match trophy to her husband and his winning team at a fundraiser, awkwardly supplanting Chandauka.
Chandauka tried to slip on stage next to Harry, as Meghan stuck firm by his side and gestured for her to move
The chair later claimed Meghan had turned up unannounced and that, because the clip went viral, Harry had invited Chandauka to make a public statement in support of his wife. Chandauka refused, saying the charity “cannot be an extension of the Sussexes”.
But it was a disagreement over the charity’s fundraising strategy in the US and a £400,000 bill for consultancy fees that led the relationship to break down fully.
In March 2025, the charity co-founders Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso, along with a number of trustees, resigned. A statement said the relationship with Chandauka “broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation”.
Chandauka retaliated, accusing the prince of “harassment and bullying at scale” by “unleashing” the Sussex PR machine, and the charity of bullying and misogynoir (misogyny towards black women). Prince Harry described her actions as a “hostile takeover”.
Sophie Chandauka said she suffered at the hands of the “Sussex PR machine”
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
The commission launched an investigation. Its report this week “criticised all parties to the dispute for allowing it to play out publicly”, but found “no evidence” of bullying or racism.
• Prince Harry accused of ‘harassment and bullying at scale’ by Sentebale boss
‘Living on a shoestring’
Dozens of reliable donors have refused to donate since the Duke of Sussex resigned as patron in March.
Many of these are from a group of Meghan superfans known as the “Sussex Squad”, who pulled funding that was worth an estimated £47,000 per year.
“There will be NO fundraisers, and we urge you to HALT all recurring donations until Prince Harry provides further guidance,” the online community said this week.
The Sentebale Polo Cup — the charity’s top fundraiser which raises £740,000 a year — has not taken place for two years.
Harry himself was a major donor, pledging £1.1 million to Sentebale from the sales of his memoir, Spare in 2021.
Prince Harry at the children’s home while on a visit to Lesotho in 2006
ANWAR HUSSEIN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES
The situation is so serious that, according to a source, the charity has run through much of its £1.4 million reserves. “It’s now living on a shoestring,” they said. “The accounts were delayed to manage media narrative on the poor financial position.”
The charity denies the claim. It said it has taken action to shore up its finances, and only shifted the accounting period to “align with the calendar year and what is typically ‘giving season’ in the US and UK”.
‘Life has totally vanished’
There are fears the activities of the charity, set up to honour Princess Diana and Prince Seeiso’s mother, have already taken a hit.
Principal Chief Khoabane Theko, who drives past Mamohato Children’s Centre daily, cannot remember the last time he saw any children there.
“The life has totally vanished from that place, it looks closed and more like somebody’s private property than the space for children as it was intended to be,” the 67-year-old said this week. “That beautiful place is just standing empty with no one benefiting.”
A Times reporter who visited last month, in the middle of the winter holidays, saw the car park full of smart 4×4 vehicles. The site was hosting a health conference, not a children’s camp.
Local staff have been told to work from home and a guard at the space said no camp had been held all year
CHRIS JACKSON/GETTY IMAGES FOR SENTEBALE
The charity says renting the space helps fund its programmes, but a guard on the gate said no camp had been held all year. This would represent a drastic change from 2022 to 2023 when 740 children were welcomed to the site.
Local staff have even been told to work from home where possible, to save money on electricity, with one source saying “it’s effectively mothballed”.
The charity defended its work, saying it remains on track to “serve at least 78,000 children and young people … matching or exceeding our 2024 impact”. The schedule at Mamohato “includes at least one holiday camp, each year”, it added.
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Theko has traced the energy ebbing away from the charity’s hub to Prince Harry’s marriage and subsequent emigration.
“I don’t understand how that lady from Zimbabwe got so powerful and Prince Seeiso and Prince Harry just walked away,” he said. “I hope they will come back and fight for this organisation that was taken away from them.”
Prince Seeiso of Lesotho and Prince Harry, who co-founded the charity in honour of their mothers
BRIAN OTIENO/GETTY IMAGES FOR SENTEBALE
Supporters of Prince Harry said he last visited Mamohato in October last year, once pandemic travel restrictions were lifted.
Local families said the site offers few jobs and no opportunities to use the facilities. “We were happy when it was being built, but this place has given us nothing,” Maotsana Matela, a mother of three, 42, said.
The row continues
Sentebale denied the charity was in a poor financial position, saying its “mission, cause and impact-focused funders”, which provide 70 per cent of its income, have remained steadfast.
While some royal fans have pulled donations, “Sentebale has gained an equal, if not greater number of individual funders since March 2025”, it said.
A spokesman added: “The charity has suffered from the negative impact of the adverse media campaign launched by the duke and the former trustees on 25 March and then the effect of the Charity Commission opening its regulatory compliance case, which has made fundraising extremely challenging for Sentebale and so we have been reliant on reserves.
“With the Charity Commission having concluded their work, the team can reactivate its fundraising efforts in earnest and are confident that the charity will recover positively as time progresses.”
The crisis at the charity could not be more ill-timed for Lesotho, which is being battered by President Trump’s parallel wars on trade and aid.
The Duke of Sussex, who has walked away from two decades of work, has said he “will now focus on finding new ways to continue supporting the children of Lesotho and Botswana”.
Sentebale continues to say the bullying allegations have not been investigated, and that they may pursue them through other “more appropriate avenues”.
If the past week has been anything to go by, it looks like neither side is ready to bury the hatchet.