Chapter X: Signs in the Shadows – WhatsApp, Bank Accounts, and Oversight

It’s the small things that often reveal the biggest truths. Take the Blue Dolphins Special Olympics Club’s WhatsApp contact, for example. Most people wouldn’t think twice about a profile photo. But this one was supposed to represent an entire club, a number athletes, families, and volunteers relied on.

Instead of a logo, a team shot, or even a generic Special Olympics symbol, the profile picture was a personal photo of five women, smiling together like it belonged to a private chat group. Not a single athlete in sight. Not a coach. Nothing official.

At first glance, it seemed funny. Strange. Innocuous. But when you understand the pattern — opaque leadership, blurred personal and professional boundaries, and informal decision-making — it starts to make sense. That small photo became a symbol of everything else: a club run like a personal circle, not an organisation. Decisions made behind closed doors. Committees invisible. Oversight optional.

And then there’s the “what if” nobody outside the circle ever sees: the club bank account. What if it was in a single person’s name, rather than a joint account as best practice dictates? One person in control of all fees, donations, and grants. One person making financial decisions without scrutiny.

The implications are clear. Even if no one is dishonest, the system is built for mistakes, for the appearance of impropriety, and for power to concentrate in one person’s hands. Transparency vanishes. Accountability disappears. And the very people the club exists to support — athletes like Josephine — are left vulnerable to rules they never agreed to, fees they struggle to pay, and schedules that control their lives.

Josephine knew this environment intimately. She skipped meals to afford fees. She rearranged her life around events she could never influence. She watched friendships quietly strained. Leadership remained untouchable, committee roles unclear, and the structures that should have protected her simply didn’t exist.

Yet through it all, she persevered. Her resilience wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was quiet determination, navigating a system stacked against her, refusing to let it define her. Even when finances, rules, and authority seemed like walls closing in, she kept moving forward — committed to her sport, her friends, and the small moments that mattered.

The WhatsApp photo and the single-name bank account are tiny details. On their own, they might seem inconsequential. But together, they tell a story of structural weakness, blurred boundaries, and the human cost of unaccountable power. They are the visible signs of an organisation that looked like a club on paper but acted like a personal domain behind the scenes.

And in that reality, Josephine’s experience stands out as a reminder: resilience is not optional when systems fail. Accountability is not negotiable. Transparency is essential. Because when they don’t exist, it’s the people who care, who show up, and who give everything — like Josephine — who pay the price.

A club’s face, its finances, its rules — all small pieces of a larger pattern. And the story behind them? That is where the truth lives.


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