Parents found Andorra’s first mutual‑help bereavement association

In 2012, after their 17‑year‑old son Marc died, Rosa Galobardes and her husband Paco González decided to set up the Principality’s first mutual‑help association for people in grief. They had begun attending monthly parent support groups in Barcelona and, after about a year and a half of travelling there, felt the need to create a local service.

The group began focused on parents who had lost children, but within a year they were receiving visits from widows, siblings and adult children, so they broadened the association’s scope to include all types of bereavement. To date, more than 200 people have passed through the organisation.

Their approach centres on listening and making people feel they are not alone. Galobardes stresses the importance of avoiding comparisons between losses: the aim is to speak about pain, not to rank whose loss hurts more. Many attendees say they look forward to the weekly meetings because, she says, society in Andorra tends to avoid talking about death.

Galobardes and her husband spent a couple of years training in bereavement care. The association runs workshops — including laughter therapy, guided sessions and candle ceremonies — in addition to regular meetings and two weekend retreats each year. Some critics have labelled the group a sect; Galobardes responds wryly that she hopes those critics never need to join.

The association is calling for more resources, especially psychologists trained in grief, and for the activation of a protocol for delivering news of sudden deaths. Galobardes argues that the way a death is communicated can add traumatic layers to an already devastating loss, so trained professionals and clear procedures are essential.

She says there are many cases of unmet bereavement needs in Andorra and vows to keep pressing for the protocol’s implementation. Galobardes regrets that grief care is largely neglected in the country and insists it should not be treated as something merely for public show; if Andorra aspires to be “VIP,” she says, that standard should apply to care for the dying and the bereaved as well.