centre for stories

Lifeline WA and suicide prevention ambassadors Leon Ruri and Adrian Momber discuss men’s mental health, dance and haka as a medicine, suicide prevention and why our society is making people mentally unwell.

Leanne discusses how grief is made up of a million tiny moments, why our communities need to better support people in their mourning, and how our values and self-awareness are key to healing and moving forward after loss.

Sandy discusses losing her dad to dementia, her newborn baby to a heart defect and her mother to cancer – all in a small country town in southwest WA. She shares how people reacted to these different losses in different ways, and why community, ritual and celebration are so important in the healing process.

Marilyn is a trauma counsellor and founder of the Metis Centre, a social justice and human rights organisation. She talks about ending her mother’s life according to her wishes, her own near-death experience, spirituality, faith, and why trauma influences our views on death.

At 84 years old, Betty has no plans of slowing down, and discusses the lessons she has learned over her lifetime toward death and dying, why we shouldn’t grieve for those we’ve lost, how staying fit at any age keeps us sane, and why helping others less fortunate than yourself doesn’t need to start or end when you’re coming to your own end of life.

Jaya Dantas is an expert in the health of vulnerable populations. When the COVID pandemic hit Australia, she believes at-risk communities here, such as Indigenous people and migrants, were let down in the government’s handling of its health response.

Graham and Helen discuss what it’s like to live with a ‘ticking clock’, caring for each other, and why having a choice in deciding to end your life is paramount to having a “good” death. In the end, it’s the little things in life that matter most.

Despite being close to death herself on many an occasion, or perhaps because of it, Amber Dennis embraces life with a passion.

Natalie and Trish discuss why people are dying on the streets, what happens to them when they do, whether a homeless person’s life is valued less than others and what government’s need to do to solve the homelessness crisis in Australia.

Sheryl’s baby boy Thomas was diagnosed with a rare cancer. She decided to not proceed with treatment – choosing quality of life over quantity.

Abdul-Rahman discusses how he uses art and sculpture to create open spaces that encourage conversations around death, reflects on the death of his grandfather to suicide and how the Western world has ‘sterilised’ death.

A courageous collection of audio stories presented in solidarity with survivors of domestic violence, recorded by the Centre for Stories in 2019 for 16 Days in WA – Stop Violence Against Women campaign.