Death Cafe

Death Cafe profile for DC Manawatu

Location: New Zealand

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091050796695&mibextid=ZbWKwL

About DC Manawatu:

Kia ora, my name is Aingie Miller, and I offer End of Life Planning, Death Doula, and Funeral Celebrant services in the Lower North Island, New Zealand.

And I am Laura Sweetman, an Indpendent Funeral Director based in the Manawatu, Palmerston North NZ.

We met in a professional sense in early 2022, both recognizing that there was a gap here in Palmy for the Death Cafe branch to start up so off we set, with the mission of being death positive and helping others to explore that too.

Given our lines of work we are fronted with these conversations daily which greatly help us with hosting Cafe - Nothing is off the table or taboo to us, rather flipping it to be sacred, honourable and meaningful to have open dialog in a safe confidential space.

We host a cafe around with Manawatu every 2 months. Find us on Facebook where we are most active, to keep up with everything we are up to.

What brings you to Death Cafe?

We are death positive.

1. We believe that by hiding death and dying behind closed doors we do more harm than good to our society.

2. We believe that the culture of silence around death should be broken through discussion, gatherings, art, innovation, and scholarship.

3. We believe that talking about and engaging with our inevitable death is not morbid, but displays a natural curiosity about the human condition.

4. We believe that the dead body is not dangerous, and that everyone should be empowered (should they wish to be) to be involved in care for their own dead.

5. We believe that the laws that govern death, dying and end-of-life care should ensure that a person’s wishes are honored, regardless of sexual, gender, racial or religious identity.

6. We believe that our death should be handled in a way that does not do great harm to the environment.

7. We believe that our family and friends should know "my end-of-life wishes", and that we should have the necessary paperwork to back-up those wishes.

8. We believe that our open, honest advocacy around death can make a difference, and can change culture.

Thoughts for sharing: