The most important conversation you've never had

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Dying to Know Day is a national public health campaign designed to create a shift in our cultural response to death. Our aim is to bring to life, conversations and community actions around death, dying, and bereavement.

"The conversation you've never had can take you places you've never been" is our campaign theme for 2021. Dealing with a life-limiting diagnosis and death is traumatic enough, but if we don't connect through one of humanity's only shared experiences, the emotional trauma can last years, and even through generations.

So this year it's all about talking, connecting, and giving people the courage to broach the subject of end of life and death, because the rewards are nothing short of life-changing.

And the very act of sharing hopes and fears before we are in that emotional moment can create connections that simply wouldn't have happened otherwise. The sharing of lived stories, long-forgotten dreams & regrets, even passing on the knowledge of what matters most. . All of this lost, if we don't start the conversation when we're well.

As events continue to be registered this year, our event holders share their creativity, humour and deep understanding of their community that shapes their event each year.

Some of our events this year include:

Let's Build a Compassionate and Connected WA Forum - a collaborative all-day event.

2-day event in Lindisfarne, Hobart with a suite of events from the practical sessions to rituals and culture.

CCNB is hosting a Before I Die wall on the promenade of the iconic Manly Beach in Sydney.

Advance Care planning community forum in Mansfield Victoria.

Dying to Know Day has become a rally point for the reluctant to join together and face the fear of emotion displayed, of ignorance revealed of stigma unleashed as we reconnect with the inevitability of our own death and of those we love and live with.

Reconciliation between First Nations and other parts of Australia can be facilitated through a shared understanding of the importance of honouring death rites that respects every individual, every family and every culture. A sense of otherness, whether engendered because of LGBTIQ identification, disability or any other difference, is profoundly irrelevant in the face of the truths about how we all want to live and to die with choice, dignity and respect.

In a post-covid Australia, the Groundswell Team will commence a three-year strategy. We will aim to reach workplaces, health settings, households, communities, rural, remote and metropolitan. Our success will manifest in the ways we bring Australians into shared conversations about dying as an important part of living. Our impact will be the increased numbers of Australians exercising choice and control over how they want to live and how they want to die.

Dying to Know Day will be the flagship for respect and dignity at end of life.

If this excites you, join us at https://www.thegroundswellproject.com/dying-to-know-day and download our resources to get your conversation started.

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