Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt

Kent’s “Speak Their Name” Memorial Quilt: 66 squares. 66 lives. A promise to remember, and a call to change.

The quilt will be visiting St George’s from 18th March to 1st April, with a Connection Event on Saturday 21st March, when there will be a chance to learn more about the quilt and the stories behind it, and to take part in a Q&A session from 2pm to 4pm.

Within Kent and Medway almost 200 deaths by suicide are reported a year and we know this is likely to be under reported by Coroners verdicts, but there are moments when grief refuses to stay quiet. The Kent Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt is one of them: a powerful, hand-crafted memorial made up of 66 individual squares, each created by families and friends bereaved by suicide , each square a life, a story, a face, a name that will not be erased.

The quilt was led in Kent by Tristan and Emma Kluibenschadl, founders of STAK.life (Stefan’s Acts of Kindness), after losing their beloved son Stefan, who died by suicide at just 15. Stefan, they say, had reported relentless bullying at his Saturday job for being autistic, and they describe a wider failure of understanding and appropriate support around him — in education, mental health, and the systems meant to protect children who are struggling.

This is not “just” a quilt. It is a public refusal to let people become statistics.

A quilt stitched from love, and from the shards of the unthinkable

The Kent quilt grew from a moment in September 2024, when Tristan and Emma attended the unveiling of another Speak Their Name memorial quilt in Portsmouth. Seeing Stefan’s name and photograph among the squares was “heart-wrenching, yet profoundly moving,” and it sparked a decision: Kent needed its own space to hold grief, memory, and community — out loud, together.

In January 2025, with community donations, volunteers, and workshop packs sent across the county, the Kent project began. Twelve workshops were held across Kent, offering bereaved families a safe place to create, talk, cry, laugh, and be understood by people who didn’t need grief explained to them.

Each square is different , stitched, painted, embroidered, layered with photos, symbols, favourite colours, in-jokes, and messages that still sound like the person who is gone. Together, the squares form a tapestry that says plainly: they mattered, they still matter, and we will keep speaking their names.