Deathcare, the process of a burial after someone has died, is often a tough subject to tackle in many homes, whether it’s reality creeping into your life or something left unspoken as a taboo.
Breaking those boundaries is techpreneur Thabisile Sethaba, who has made deathcare an issue that can be solved through accessibility.
Other than her TikTok videos on the topic, she is also the co-founder of Send Off, an app that “centralises the burial needs of everyone to shop for services in deathcare”.
Calling herself the midwife of Send Off, Sethaba and her co-founder have reached over 17,000 users, which she has extended into an upcoming podcast, Let’s Talk Deathcare.
While the idea might seem golden for a first-world country, some South African audienceshave not warmed up to conversations about burials and life cover. Something she tapped into when engaging her TikTok audience, who inspired Let’s Talk Deathcare.
“After interacting with my content, a lot of my followers wanted to laugh about things rather than sit there depressed. If you want to talk about things that are this heavy, you have to incorporate that sense of humour to a greater extent,” says Sethaba, who is affectionately known as “Babes We Deathcare”.
Focused on young South Africans who have the burden of burying a parent, the topics tackled in the podcast that she has touched on through the app and her social media, include people with children who remarry without drawing up a will and even those who leave their families with debts rather than inheritance.
“We’ve seen this with those houses in townships that are still being fought over for more than four generations.”
And while traditional households might come into mind when tackling deathcare, there are also cohabitating partners or chosen families. Sethaba says Send Off covers these issues with their latest product, called Send Off Sorted, which allows users to store important documentation from where they work, policies, banking details and asset registry among others. This becomes especially important when one is looking for a respectable send-off that they haven’t stipulated in an official will.
“You need to be aware of how you store your documentation and how easily accessible it is in your absence. In the African context, we might have wishes on our burial and inheritances, but our families might have their own. That is when you find your funeral arrangements where someone has to play referee because everyone has their own wishes, and everyone has to find common ground.”
This can also be seen with young professionals, especially those burdened with “black tax” who have to navigate parents or other family members who might view conversations on death as an omen. Sethaba says it becomes important to break these taboos by encouraging conversations on these issues.
With the festive season coming around, a number of unexpected deaths can occur. Sethaba says there are a number of ways to prevent duress during this time:
MOVING DECEASED LOVED ONES
“A lot of people are going to start travelling now, so organising a funeral when you’re in Joburg while someone is in Bloemfontein can be a logistical pain. You don’t need to travel between provinces to organise a funeral. With Send Off you can go on the app and whatever you request is, we can do it for you. We can even help with the care movement of your loved ones from a public hospital to private care.”
STAY DOCUMENTED
“Make sure that as you move around all your documents are in place. To register death, people need your ID and a copy from the departed loved one. This can often be a problem because most people when travelling leave their documents behind and there is no-one to find them. It then becomes a thing of rushing back home to get those documents without kick-starting the process of death registration.”
DON’T OVERSPEND
“Even if you have a policy, you will find that there are still some expenses that need to be taken care of. You don’t want to be taking up new loans because those are very hard to pay back. So don’t overspend your money, try to save it.”
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