Natural Death Care Project (California)
From a letter (11th Dec 1997) to The Natural Death Center UK from Michele Brule (e-mail: ndcp@metro.net) Natural Death Care Project (Sebastopol, California)
My name is Michele Brule and I am a volunteer with the Natural Death Care Project in Sebastopol, California. I help maintain the Natural Death Care Project's web site located at www.naturaldeathcare.org.
The Natural Death Care Project (NDCP) is a program of the Community Network for Appropriate Technologies (CNAT), a non-profit tax-exempt educational charitable organization. We are a model project offering education for personal and legal rights concerning home or family-directed funerals and final disposition. It is our intention to re-introduce the concept of funerals in the home as a part of family life and as a way to de-institutionalize death. We are dedicated to a dignified and compassionate alternative to current funeral practices.
Our Beginnings
Jerri Lyons created the Natural Death Care Project as a result of the unexpected death of her friend Carolyn Whiting who left detailed instructions for a home funeral. Family and friends participation in a natural home setting supported those grieving and allowed more time for closure. Barriers of fear and anger were broken down, giving more room for love and celebration through this important passage. Jerri was deeply moved by Carolyn's presence and the way she was personally cared for with dignity and honor. It awakened in her a passion to share it with others. She pioneered the NDCP in 1995 to re-establish a choice that our ancestors once held sacred. Janelle Va Melvin brought her chaplaincy and hospice experience to the project, as co-director, in 1996.
Our Purpose
NDCP offers a full spectrum of choices for funeral care. NDCP provides educational materials, consultations, referrals and seminars that prepare and support individuals and the community to carry out a home or family-directed funeral. Continuing Education Units (CEU's) are available for Health Care Professionals. Specializing in home funeral arrangements and ceremony, NDCP is dedicated to promoting meaningful closure, giving advantage to elders, low income and cross-cultural communities and addressing earth friendly disposition.
We share the UK Natural Death Centre's passion for more natural approaches to after-death care and consumer's last rites/rights.
Michele Brule, Jerri Lyons and Janelle Va Melvin, Natural Death Center Project office, P.O. Box 1721, Sebastopol, CA 95473 (also Jerri's home), USA, (Janelle Melvin, e-mail: ndcp@metro.net).
For more information sources on natural-death-related topics in the USA, see Natural Death Centre USA Funeral Resources Page.
The Natural Death Centre is a project of the Institute for Social Inventions which runs the Global Ideas Bank.
