Liverpool Students are bidding raise £25,000 for Movember.
The charity is clebrating its 20th anniversary this year with a dramatic rise in members. Founded by a group of friends in Australia in 2003, a staggering nearly 7 million have pledged money and the movement has now gone global. Since 2003 Movember has funded 1320 men’s mental health projects in over 20 countries, including The UK, The USA, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland and they now span all 7 continents on the globe.
LJMU swimmers have chosen this cause as the inspiration to raise cash for the cause. Niamh Mahon is part of the team. “It’s really important to talk about men’s mental health. There’s a lot of stigma around men talking about how they feel, especially in a university context, which is why we are as university students are taking on this challenge.”
It’s only their first year competing, but the swimmers are not just making up the numbers having already raised £568. “We had an aim of getting £500 this year. That was our overall charity goal for the year as well as a society, and I’m quite happy we’ve already managed to achieve that and I know we can definitely raise more for this great cause.”
With just over a week to go before the end of Movember, the students raised nearly 10 grand, an impressive return Mahon says the club are proud of. “The cricket team have already raised lots over the course of the month and all the other societies are doing everything we can to raise as much as we can. We are doing a charity event with the University of Liverpool swim team in an effort to widen the amount of people we can reach and it looks like we’re already going to raise a lot from that event so we are well on our way.”
Whilst this months focus for the swim team is on Movember, it’s not the only charity they have got involved with this year: “We raised lots of money doing a social for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, where we did an ‘On Wednesdays, we wear pink’ social to raise awareness. We are also looking at potentially doing Mental Health Days in January, February and March too.”
One of the main ways people raise money for Movember is growing a moustache throughout the month. A variety of companies and celebrities take part in the challenge.
Mahon has taken up her own challenge to raise cash. The 21 year old is not a competitive swimmer and instead spends her time out of the pool running the teams social media output, but decided it was time she got in the pool and train harder. “I obviously can’t grow any facial hair, genetically-wise. So I’m swimming 15 Kilometers over the course of this week to raise money and awareness for all the great things Movember do.”
She says it is important for women to raise awareness on men’s mental health. “I‘m not affected personally by prostate or testicular cancer but just think about doing it for your dads, your brothers, any men in your life that you really care about. It’s really important for them to know that you support them in any way you can, I‘m just showing them that I can do something to help them, even if it’s not growing a moustache.”
With only a week left on their fundraising challenge the LJMU societies continue to promote the good work of Movember do year-round across the globe. To find out more and to donate to the cause follow the link down below.
