At Leyton UK, we are proud supporters of Movember, which helps to raise awareness of men’s physical and mental health issues.
November saw several team members sporting moustaches around our offices in a stylish effort to raise money for charity, all while drawing attention to important issues surrounding men’s wellbeing like poor mental health, suicide, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.
How we supported Movember
As well as fundraising, Movember is about raising awareness and starting important conversations around men’s health.
It was a busy month. Along with the traditional effort to ‘Grow a Mo’, team members were encouraged to think about their wellbeing while raising money for charity by giving up something like caffeine, sugar or alcohol for a month. We even hosted a popular Movember quiz and a bake sale, bringing colleagues together in aid of a great cause.
Business Development Managers Jamie Omer and Ciaran Grieves told us why they were so keen to support Movember this year.
“I wanted to get to know my peers and understand the business more,” said Jamie. “I also wanted to ensure that my colleagues have an awareness of how this is a good time to come forward and have a chat with their peers and management about certain things.”
“To put it bluntly, men are pretty rubbish at opening up and speaking to people,” added Ciaran, who has been taking part in Movember fundraisers for eight years. He explained that he’d been particularly shocked by the statistics he’d seen around men’s health. The stats are indeed powerful:
- Men die on average 4.5 years earlier than women
- 10.8 million men face life with a prostate cancer diagnosis
- One man dies by suicide every minute of every day
- 69% of all suicides are male
As well as growing some impressive moustaches, Jamie and Ciaran, along with their colleague Scott Cairns, have set up weekly Thursday Run Clubs, encouraging people to run or walk 60km throughout November to raise money as part of Movember’s ‘Move for Mental Health’ initiative.
“November’s a tough time,” explained Ciaran. It’s starting to get dark, it’s getting cold. It all impacts on your physical and mental wellbeing. This was a way of getting anyone who wants to join out and going for a run.”
“Besides the physical benefits of going for a run, everyone was having conversations,” added Jamie, reflecting on how Movember has helped men speak more openly about issues affecting their health.
“I’ve seen the conversation evolve,” he said. “There is more space available to talk about mental health…I think it’s incredibly important. And it doesn’t matter your age, it’s something that can affect people at varying points in their life…It’s really important to know how to spark up a conversation.”
The success of our Movember fundraising has been a real team effort, with enthusiastic participation from colleagues across all our UK offices.
To help support men’s health, the Movember team have written an insightful article on 5 things men should know and do when it comes to their health.
You can hear more about our Movember efforts by listening to our Life at Leyton podcast.
Are you interested in a career at Leyton? Discover how to empower your career.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like:
