It is with great sadness that Start Network learned of the sudden passing of Noreen Gumbo, a member of the Start Network Board of Trustees, on 8 April 2025.
The whole Start Network staff, trustees and wider membership are incredibly shocked and saddened by the news. Our thoughts and condolences are with Noreen’s family at this difficult and heartbreaking time.
Noreen was Global Programmes Director at Trócaire and served as an Assembly Representative for Start Network, before joining the Board in 2019. During her six years on the Board, she chaired the Nominations Committee and was instrumental in steering us responsibly and ambitiously towards a locally led "network of networks."
We are grateful for her insights, her steady guidance, and her unwavering dedication, qualities that enriched Start Network and all of us who were fortunate enough to work alongside her, always sharpened by her probing but important questions and principled leadership. Her unforgettable legacy will continue to live on through all of us whose lives she touched so deeply.
"Noreen was a soul that was destined to be a great humanitarian, always with a kind word for her friends and colleagues, and a deep, abiding passion to do better for those we serve. She was the quiet voice of calm and experience that I and so many relied on, and her counsel and wisdom will be our loss as we continue to serve the most vulnerable as she would have expected." - Sanj Srikanthan, Chair of Board of Trustees.
“With Noreen’s passing, the humanitarian sector has lost a kind, committed and insightful humanitarian leader. I will miss Noreen terribly, but will always live in gratitude for her remarkable contributions to the humanitarian sector and to Start Network.” - Christina Bennett, CEO.