Michelle Dariol to run ACT's first publicly-owned crematorium

And the young woman in charge is 29-year-old Michelle Dariol, who believes it is a privilege to help people farewell their loved one.

The new crematorium officially opened on March 15. There have so far been 95 cremations.

It is Canberra's second crematorium and the first one run by the government, via the ACT Cemeteries Authority.

The other crematorium, Norwood Park has been privately owned and operated for the last 55 years, just across the roundabout in Sandford Street.

A government review found a need for a second crematorium, with 75 per cent of Canberrans choosing cremation rather than burials, not least to meet religious and cultural preferences.

Ms Dariol is not only the first operator of the first public crematorium in the ACT, but the territory's first woman to operate a crematorium.

She feels it is a role she was destined to fulfil. She travelled to India when she was 18 and saw the very public cremations on the bank of the Ganges, forever changed by the ceremony of ashes being scatted in the river so a loved one's soul could go to heaven.

"It was a really big moment for me," she said. "It just really opened my mind."

Born and bred in Canberra, she has worked in customer service in Access Canberra and on the front desk for five years at the Gungahlin cemetery. She was chosen to operate the crematorium, her calm, steady nature and empathy obvious. She says it is a role she will never take for granted.

"I feel like it gives me purpose because I get to look after the community in such a personal way," she said.

"I feel so privileged for this to be my purpose. Being in customer service here has been amazing as well. We are the caretakers of their loved ones and you build such a strong rapport with the families."

Michelle put her hand up to run the crematorium.

"It was difficult. There's no Crematorium 101. So I researched procedures across Australia and manuals for different crematoriums. And I got to go interstate and do hands-on training at a crematorium at Macquarie Park in North Ryde. And they were fantastic," she said.

Back in Canberra, Michelle and her team helped to fit out the viewing room of the crematorium, so it can be like a loungeroom, or a more formal arrangement of rows of chairs.

The family can choose to push the button to start the cremation, if they wish, and when they are ready, as some cultures dictate.

"This room was designed so people of different cultures can conduct their funeral rites as they need to," she said.

Michelle is present for every crematorium, including on weekends, and says the job is the true sense of being a public servant.

"The hardest part of my job is seeing people in pain. The best part of my job is doing my best to make it easier for them," she said.

She is proud to be a groundbreaker in the local industry. "I feel a lot of ownership of it," she said.

Michelle has 11 family members buried at Gungahlin Cemetery, which was was opened in 1979. Her great-grandmother was buried there in that opening year and her grandmother was buried there just last September.

"They're here with me," she said.

Her parents represent that generational change. They want to be cremated, rather than buried.

"They want me to make them into diamonds, so that's what we're going to do," Michelle said, with a laugh.

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