The Death Café

What is Death Café?

At a Death Café people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death.

Our objective is to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.

A Death Café is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session. Our Death Cafés are always offered:

• On a not for profit basis
• In an accessible, respectful and confidential space
• With no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product or course of action
• Alongside refreshing drinks and nourishing food – and cake!

Death Café is a'social franchise. This means that people who sign up to our guide and principles can use the name Death Café, post events to the website and talk to the press as an affiliate of Death Café.

Death Cafés have spread quickly across Europe, North America and Australia. As of today, we have offered 611 Death Cafés since September 2011. If 10 people came to each one that would be 6110 participants. We've established that there are people who are keen to talk about death and many are passionate enough to organize their own Death Café.

The Death Café model was developed by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid, based on the ideas of Bernard Crettaz. Death Café has no staff and is run on a voluntary basis by Jon Underwood in Hackney, East London.

Also Lizzy Miles who ran the first Death Café in the US and Megan Mooney who runs the Death Café Facebook page have played a significant role in Death Cafe's development. We remain energized by the amazing quality of the dialogue at our events and are overwhelmed by the interest we have received. People often ask why we do this. Everyone has his/her own reasons for getting involved in Death Café.

History. In 2010 Jon Underwood decided to develop a series of projects about death one of which was to focus on talking about death. In November Jon read about the work of Bernard Crettaz in the Independent newspaper. Inspired by Bernard's work, Jon immediately decided to use similar model for his own project, and Death Café was born.

The first Death Café in the UK was offered in Jon's house in Hackney, East London in September 2011. It was facilitated by pychotherapist Sue Barsky Reid, Jon's mum. It was a wonderful occasion. We went on to offer Death Cafés in a range of places including funky cafes, people's houses, cemeteries, a yurt and the Royal Festival Hall.

Jon and Sue Barsky Reid produced a guide to running your own Death Café, based around the methodology Sue developed. This was published in February 2012 and the first person to pick it up was Lizzy Miles in Columbus, Ohio. Subsequently hundreds of people have worked with us to provide Death Cafés across the globe.

Source: DeathCafe.