It’s that time of the year when you’ll see a sprouting of upper lip hair on male family members, friends, work colleagues and public figures.
What’s that all about, then?
The Movember campaign is upon us again – what?
In 2004 a group of guys in Melbourne Australia organised an event where 30 men would grow a moustache for 30 days in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer and depression in men. .As the slang for a moustache in Australia is a ‘Mo’ and the event took place in November they decided to call it Movember. The gents taking part refer to them selves as ‘Mo Bros‘ and the lady supporters as ‘Mo Sistas’. This group would go on to form the Movember Foundation charity.
Since then, it has been launched in 21 countries raising about £346 million, with over 4 million Mo Bros and Mo Sistas taking part. The Movember foundation has, so far invested in about 800 programmes in those 21 countries. The Movember Global Action plan brings together the brightest minds in research, creating strong collaborative global teams, which means sharing knowledge and resources, avoiding duplication of work to reach a common goal, thus accelerating the results to improve health outcomes
In 2007 Movember was launched in the UK and in 2010 merged with ‘Tacheback’, a similar event raising funds for, and awareness of, testicular cancer. In 2013 £20.4 million was raised in the UK alone.
In the UK, 30,000 men every year are diagnosed with prostate cancer and one man every hour dies from this disease. It’s difficult to get us, men, to go to the doctor when we’re ill and almost impossible, for a routine check up! Most of the deaths occur because we only get checked out when symptoms occur but often there are no symptoms until the disease is more advanced. If it’s diagnosed early, the prognosis is good so it’s vital to get checked early.
If you do not want to donate, at least go for a check up or persuade someone else to.
It might just save someone’s life- perhaps yours.
From 30 Mo Bros in Melbourne, Australia in 2003 to 4 million Mo’s by 2013, Movember, through the power of the moustache, has become a truly global movement that is having an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health.
Please help to ‘change the face of men’s health’ by taking part or if you just want to ‘fling funds’, the guys in Daines and Gray, the butchers in Shepperton High Street are taking part so you can put any donations in their collecting box.
For more info go to www.uk.movember.com