Emily Beyer
With the month of November, another year of the Movember Movement just concluded. Since 2003, the Movember Foundation has been a leading charity raising funds and awareness for men’s health, more specifically mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
Mr. Martin wearing his moustache
In 2006, the movement expanded to include New Zealand along with Australia and in 2007 four more countries, the US, Canada, the UK and Spain, joined the movement. By 2013, marking the ten-year anniversary, the group of 30 men had expanded to 4 million people from a total of 21 countries. Then, $559 million had already been raised to go towards various men’s health projects. The Movember Foundation has set their focus on addressing crises on a global scale by “unit[ing] experts from around the world to collaborate on projects that will fundamentally change the way men in need are treated and supported”, as they state on their website. They act by providing facts, creating services uniting people and advocating. On average, men die 4.5 years before women do, and the reasons for this could often be prevented. By last year, over 1,320 men’s health programs, like TrueNTH, were funded by the foundation to help change this.
Now you might wonder, how do I get involved? The obvious answer is growing a mustache, but there are more opportunities like donating, or moving for mental health, meaning running or walking 60 miles in the month, to advocate for mental health. We don’t have to look very far to find people involved in the movement here in Japan. Our very own Mr. Martin and Mr. Diaz participated in the Movember movement this year, growing out mustaches for the duration of the 30 days. I was lucky enough to get to interview both of them about their Movember experience.
When asked what inspired him to participate in the Movember movement, Mr. Diaz replied that his mom was part of research for cancer treatment for years. “This is my way to help raise some awareness,” he said. He believes that participating can make a difference in the lives of men, as “it makes a topic that most men don’t want to talk about more.” During his movember journey, Mr. Diaz encountered the difficulty, that he was not used to having a mustache so that took some getting used to.
For Mr. Martin, there were a couple of things that inspired him to participate in the Movember movement: “One I think it’s just kind of fun but also, I guess Movember the events its kinda centered or driven towards raising awareness for certain issues for men, prostate cancer, I think its testicular cancer and just like mental health, suicide prevention, that kind of thing. There are people in my family who have suffered from some of those things.” When asked how participating in Movember can make a difference in the lives of men, he replied: “I think, for mental health, I choose not to just do a normal mustache, I prefer to do something, you know a little more fun so that just amuses somebody that helps with some health in an indirect kind of way, but I guess sometimes people will ask you why you’re doing it, just like this interview, and it raises awareness.” One thing which he thought did not go as planned was that he wasn’t able to raise much money for the charity. “I guess I didn’t do a very good job of promoting verbally to everyone – something I will try to improve on in future years,” he said.
Let this be our call to action and motivation for more participation next year. Whether or not you are planning to participate by growing a mustache, donating or running 60 miles next year, we can spread the word about the Movember movement, so next November even more awareness is raised for men’s health.
Movember. “Movember – Changing the Face of Men’s Health.” Us.movember.com, 2003, www.movember.com/.
Emily Beyer