Tender Funerals Cairns volunteers to screen death documentary at JCU
A group of Cairns funeral home volunteers are destigmatising conversations around death, revealing some people are taking their coffins home and personalising them, while one woman used hers as a coffee table.
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A group of Cairns funeral home volunteers are destigmatising conversations around death, revealing some people are takingtheir coffins home and personalising them, while one woman used hers as a coffee table.
Cairns women Justine Schlicht and Jodi Brown, who volunteer for not-for-profit funeral home Tender Funerals, started the conversation with a free screening of funeral documentary Tender at James Cook University on Monday, November 11.
The film, made by Australian Story in 2013, follows the death of a Tender Australia founding member in Illawarra.
Tender Funerals Cairns branch volunteer Justine Schlicht said it was important to have discussions on the funeral process to allow families to grieve in the best way they could.
Tender Funerals, which operates throughout Australia, offers legal advice, financial support and more recently eco-friendly coffins.
“We actually have cardboard coffins, and we’ve had people come along and buy one, take them home and decorate and personalise them,” Ms Brown said.
“We’ve had people take them home and have them in their storage area for a few years already. One lady told us she’s using hers as a coffee table.”
While death has been considered a taboo subject in many aspects of society, Ms Schlicht said it was important for families to discuss funeral processes with family and friends who were not terminally ill so that family wishes can be respected.
“It is something I think our society has created a stigma around and – with total respect, there are many different cultures with different ways of looking at death,” she said.
“So Tender Funerals really acknowledges that and is really respectful of culture and how to approach and support people.
“We’re really about empowering people in their funeral decisions and letting people know what their choices can be.”
In addition to starting conversations, Cairns volunteer Jodi Brown said she hoped the film would encourage viewers to volunteer their time or donate money towards establishing a Tender Funeral home in the city.
“We hope that (the film) will motivate people to come on the journey with us, and a part of that is, once we’re operational, we’ll be self funded – we need money or a parcel of land to establish an operational site,” she said.
Once a site was established, Ms Brown said she hoped to support Indigenous communities across the Far North access affordable funeral care.
“We hope that we’ll then be able to develop a hub for Far North Queensland to support our Torres Strait and Cape communities to empower them to have funerals the way they need to have them and get more people back on country.”
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Originally published as Tender Funerals Cairns volunteers to screen death documentary at JCU
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