The Natural Death Centre International Awards 1996 for the most helpful and innovative projects, announced in London on September 1st 1996, go to the following three winners:
- Yvonne Malik, designer living in Wray, Lancashire, UK, is the
main £500 Award winner, for her inventiveness and artistry on the
theme of death and dying, particularly for her beautiful decorated coffins
for adults and children, for her meditation glass panels and for her current
proposals for a flat pack, cardboard Celebration Box. This Celebration Box
could be placed at the back of the church or crematorium or memorial service,
or filled before death, as a kind of miniature art gallery, with photographs,
letters, poems, keepsakes and small items. "This is a new way",
writes Malik, "of including family and friends in a non-verbal act
of celebration - as a later comfort for the bereaved, as well as something
to be treasured by the next generation." Malik seeks a sponsor to manufacture
and distribute the Celebration Box. See
page 65 of the 1996 book Creative Endings (described below) for details.
- Fine Black Lines by Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad (published by the
Mulberry Hill Press in Colorado) wins the Natural Death Centre's Best Book
Award. In this self-published book, Hjelmstad reviews her experiences of
breast cancer, double mastectomy and other ordeals. She distils her insights
in fine poetry and with tips for fellow sufferers and those they live with.
Themes tackled include a commitment to keeping sex alive (and how the need
for intimacy can be misunderstood: "I'm thinking about death - and
you're thinking about sex?") and the limitations of positive thinking
(which can become an "additional burden", a barrier against talking
about what one is really thinking and feeling - "afraid to even mention
the possibility of not getting well, as though that would be a jinx").
See page 12.
- Chris Docker, of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Scotland,
wins a Natural Death Centre Award for his excellently-researched 28-page
paper on 'The art and science of fasting - Abstinence from food and drink
as a means of accelerating death'. Docker points out that fasting is the
only method at the present time "in which all sides in the 'right
to die' debate may reach common agreement under the law"; and quotes
research to the effect that fasting is a reassuringly peaceful death, with
a further correlation between comfort and lack of medical hydration. A survey
of hospice nurses found that "82 per cent disagreed with the statement
that dehydration is painful". Docker also describes the Jaina religious
group in India, where voluntary fasts to death by those approaching their
end are considered dignified yogic deaths. See
page 30.
The 1996 Awards were determined by the directors of The Natural Death Centre and its parent body, the Institute for Social Inventions, from their selection of material sent in by correspondents around the world (although winning schemes had to have some applicability to the UK).
Members of the public are invited to nominate possible future winners.
These awards and many other schemes are described in the 1966 book, available online (free) or in a print version, described below:
- Designer Dying & Celebratory Funerals -
Edited by
Nicholas Albery,
Lindesay Irvine, Philip Buckley & Stephanie Pieau.
Cover Illustration by Anthony Colbert
6 Blackstock Mews, Blackstock Road
London N4 2BT
tel 020 7359 8391
fax 020 7354 3831
e-mail: rhino@dial.pipex.com
Copyright © The Natural Death Centre 1996
[NB - Creative Endings is now out of print, but other annuals on similar subjects, such as Progressive Endings and Ways to Go-Naturally are also available to order online for the same price]
The Natural Death Centre is a charity which supports those who are dying at home and provides information to those trying to organise funerals with or without the help of funeral directors. It also works more generally to help improve the quality of dying, through research, awards, publications, meetings, salons and an annual English Day of the Dead in April. The Natural Death Centre has set up two subsidiary organisations, The Association of Natural Burial Grounds, which promotes the Green burial grounds set up by councils, farmers and wildlife trusts; and the Befriending Network, which provides volunteers to visit those who are critically ill at home. The Centre has many publications available free on the Internet, at the location: http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 9523280 2 X
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
Book
Orders: To order the Creative Endings book in which this piece
appears or any of the other books that make up the Global Ideas Bank.
";
echo $mb_link;
echo "
";
if ( session_is_registered('navigation')) {
echo " Return to Message Board's last display of selected messages";
}
?>