On 23rd March BBT hosted the first Death Café ever in Bizkaia. Indeed, it`s only the third time that such an event has taken place in the Basque Country. Death is often such a taboo issue that we prefer not to talk about it and the pain it causes for loved ones is something so personal that we don`t go beyond sharing their grief and offering loving support in whatever way we can.
Death Café gives people an opportunity to get together and discuss wider aspects of death but it is not a grief centre. The Death Café in BBT was well attended and everybody had an opportunity to talk about how death affected them and other more general issues connected to death. In general, people seemed to agree that more could and should be done to make our deaths something that we should have more control over and a say in.
The initiative was that of Naomi Hasson, a native Derry (Ireland) girl who now lives with her family in Gatika outside Mungia. Naomi works in hospices in palliative care and the subject of coping with death is one that is very important to her and we are indebted to the fact that she chose BBT as the hosting group. Thanks also to Alberto Vegas for his support in organizing this event.