With heavy hearts, the NCD Alliance shares the sad and tragic news that Charity Muturi, an NCD advocate from Kenya, passed away suddenly on 6 November. Charity died by suicide, a cause for which she advocated passionately, including petitioning for the decriminalisation of suicide in Kenya.

Her death is a great loss to the NCD community. Charity was such an inspiring advocate and campaigner, who was so generous with her time and so committed to the cause of NCDs and mental health. She worked closely with the Kenya NCD Alliance for a number of years and was very active at the national level in advancing mental health policies, including working to decriminalise suicide in Kenya as a court petitioner.

She was an amazing spokesperson, for her warmth and sincerity as well as her eloquence and powerful messages. Whenever Charity spoke, the audience would be captivated. Here is Charity during the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing her story in the BBC storyworks series on Turning the Tide.

She was pivotal to our work at the NCD Alliance on Our Views, Our Voices. She was always sharing such wise advice and perspectives on meaningful involvement. She shared her experience of being on the Kenya Mental Health Taskforce at the 2019 Global NCD Alliance Forum, inspiring the NCD community, making us realise that meaningful involvement needs to be operationalised. She became part of the Our Views Our Voices Global Advisory Committee where she served two terms from 2020-2024 and was a powerful motor behind the Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement and advocating towards the WHO Framework. She truly pushed us and challenged us as an organisation to step up and lead on meaningful involvement.

We will all miss her smile, her passion and her wisdom greatly, and share our deepest condolences with her family, friends and colleagues. She has gone far too young, but left a powerful legacy and will be remembered with warmth and love through the years to come. Rest well Charity.