After the first week in December, Label Volunteer Andrew Batu, reflects back on the fantastic charity work from Loughborough’s AU Sport for Movember.
Hopefully, you’re familiar with Movember. If not, you might be confused as to why one month of the year many of your clean-shaven friends decide to unveil their moustaches, or patchy upper lip fluff, to the world, before promptly removing it all on the first of December. Essentially, it’s a time in which the growing of facial hair is used to highlight men’s health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer and suicide. The charity ‘Movember’ encourages fundraising, which helps it support 1,250 men’s health projects. Hopefully you were aware, as 2019 has been an amazing Movember for Loughborough, with outstanding participation across the board.
Loughborough has been posting on various social media accounts about the progress that has been made by students over the month. You can head over to @lboroheadsup and check out the stories to see how the fundraising has been coming along. There have been some amazing numbers raised by individual students, halls and other groups. And our AU clubs are no expectation.
AU Hockey has been storming the way this month, with 47 members on track to raise over £5,000 for the various charities backed by Movember. They’ve been doing group move challenges, another way to get involved in Movember without growing a beard, with a highlight 75km group cycle completed as an organised event.
AU Rugby has also been active on the moustache-growing scene this year, one of the places where historically Movember has been widely supported. James Gallagher, who has been organising the LSRFC team and their Movember efforts for the past three years, says “men’s health, whether it’s mental health or prostate & testicular cancer is something that’s been highlighted in rugby for many years.” Having taking part in Movember solo one year previous to organising LSRFC, it was an easy sell to the team.
“The wider focus on mental health has been constantly growing the charity” James says. It’s true that the issue of mental health and suicide is extremely complex, and ‘Movember’ has set no small goal in reducing the global rate of male suicide by 25% in the next 11 years.
Remember, these charities rely on donations to help save lives, and there’s still time to donate. If you would like to find out more about the movement and the charities it supports, or how you could get involved, during or after November, Go to uk.movember.com. 
