A Death Café is a facilitated conversation about death and dying. The event offers people who are grappling with the eminent or recent death of a loved one an opportunity to talk about death in a safe environment with people who are willing to listen. This is a gift because so many people are uncomfortable talking about death and dying. The Death Café is part of an organized “social franchise” network. According to its founders, the network includes nearly 19,000 Death Cafes in 90 countries across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. They were inspired by the work of Swiss sociologist and ethnologist Bernard Crettaz, who, after the death of his wife, developed a project in 1999 called Café Mortel, where people could gather to talk about death, because Crettaz felt that death was a taboo and a “fundamental enigma” that frightens people. In the past decade or so, mortality has become more of a prominent, trending subject. The “death positivity” movement — which includes Death Cafes and end-of-life doulas, along with blogs, YouTube Channels and more — aims to demystify the same enigma of death that Crettaz was so interested in.
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