Dying Matters Awareness Week in 2025 will take place from 5 - 11 May.
Every year, people around the UK use Dying Matters Awareness Week as a moment to encourage all communities to get talking in whatever way, shape or form works for them.
The theme of this year's campaign is: The Culture of Dying Matters
The mission of Dying Matters is to break down the stigma and taboo of talking about death and dying.
To this day, that’s still applicable to much of the UK.
But do we all have the same attitudes, views and practices on death and dying?
There are of course many differences in the ways that cultures and faiths approach and mark death and dying. But at their core, feelings about dying, and our experiences of grief, are universal emotions that we all share, no matter who we are or where we live.
While a friend or family member’s death can affect every person differently, studies of grieving brains have shown that there are no scientific differences in relation to race, age or religion. We can all feel the impact of the loss, helplessness, sadness – but we may do it, and show it, in different ways.
We may all talk about death and dying in a multitude of ways, but we share a common thread.
This Dying Matters Awareness Week, we’re focusing on how different communities and cultures in the UK feel, talk about, and deal with death and dying – and what brings them together.
Because the culture of Dying Matters.
The mission of Dying Matters is to break down the stigma
and taboo of talking about death and dying.
To this day, that’s still applicable to much of the UK.
But do we all have the same attitudes, views and practices
on death and dying?
LEARN MORE HERE
As part of Dying Matters Awareness Week in 2024, their powerful experiences explored how language plays such an important part at the end of someone’s life.
WATCH HERE
Our recommendations this year come from contributors including Dying Matters supporters,
hospice professionals, spiritual leaders and academics.
READ HERE
How to support someone who has been given a life limiting illness
If you need a little help in ways to reach out to someone, we got you!
HELPFUL RESOURCE
Take part in an active challenge this 2025, to help with your mental health!
Challenging yourself is one of the best ways to stay active mentally and physically!
TAKE PART IN AN EVENT
DON'T SAY THE WORD
Death. Dying. Hospice.
These are not easy words to say and they are not words that are brought up in conversation lightly. ellenor is hoping to change that.
LISTEN TO PODCAST
How to use these conversation starter cards
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions they’re simply a way to think, and talk, about your experience and perceptions of death and dying and find out what people from other cultures and faiths think...
CONVERSATION CARDS
Sikh teachings, based on Guru Nanak and the ten Sikh Gurus, focus on the soul moving towards Waheguru (God) through transmigration and reincarnation.
READ HERE
Hospice UK have joined forces with a number of institutions to create a Planning Ahead Tool. It will lead you, step by step, to think about your values and the things that matter most to you in life (and in dying).
This plan is by no means definitive and remember that your Advanced Care Plan can be a fluid document. You will need to inform your doctors or your loved ones of your views to ensure they can meet your wishes.
Dying Matters have created five downloadable leaflets to help provide support and advice to help you get started talking and planning for death.
None of us want to think about getting ill and dying. But having a plan makes it easier for you and your loved ones when you are dying. Thinking about things like making a will, deciding what kind of care we’d like, or by making clear our wishes, can make our last days easier for us and the time after our death easier for our families and friends.
It can be very difficult to know what to say or do when someone you know has lost someone close. We often want to offer support. However, it can be hard to know what to say for fear of being intrusive or saying the wrong thing.
Talking about death doesn’t bring death closer. It’s about planning for life, helping us make the most of the time that we have. However, starting the conversation, particularly with those close to you, is never easy. We don’t want to upset people, or sound gloomy. Still, families commonly report that it comes as a relief once the subject is brought out into the open.
Dementia, often presenting as memory loss, confusion and difficulty carrying out daily activities, affects about 800,000 people living in the UK.
Providing end of life care for people with dementia is a key part of delivering good quality care but many people put things off until it’s too late, often missing opportunities that could lead to improved quality of life.
We can’t protect children from death. They encounter it all the time – whether it’s a mouse brought in by the cat or a grandparent dying. At an early age, they can form their own beliefs around it.
