For those of you who still have the privilege of walking around campus, you may notice a few extra furry faces in Front Square, as society members have taken on the challenge of growing moustaches for Movember challenge to raise money and awareness for men’s mental health.
Last year, students in Ireland raised over €60,000 throughout the month for Movember. This year, the student cohort of the campaign – led by Vice-President of the Irish Student Consulting Group (ISCG) Kieran Morris and fellow Trinity student Brian Harnett – has raised €90,000 in the first three days, €27,000 of which was raised by Trinity students. Students’ current Movember record of €100,000 will likely be surpassed.
Some of Trinity’s biggest names – including Provost Patrick Prendergast and Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union President Eoin Hand – have signed up to the challenge.
Speaking to The University Times, Hand said: “I’m doing Movember for the pure reason of raising awareness about men’s mental health, testicular and prostate cancer and raising funds for vital service”.
Hand not only accepted the challenge but also got the Provost on board. “I took a Zoom call with the organiser, and on the back of giddiness and excitement I threw it out as a suggestion for my next meeting with the Provost, to which the Provost himself gleefully rebutted: ‘Sure why not’”.
In a tweet, the Provost announced: “Both [Eoin Hand] and I are growing moustaches for the month of November to support Ireland’s Movember 2020 student campaign to continue to break down the stigma surrounding men’s mental health”.
On moustache styles, Hand said: “I’ll take what I can get. I can promise you that it won’t be pretty, it won’t be cool, it certainly won’t be sexy, but it will start important conversations about men’s mental health”.
There are plenty of reasons to hop aboard the Movember train.
Representing Trinity Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC),Trinity College Law Review and Trinity College Law Society (LawSoc). Sam Carthy told this newspaper that “nothing annoys me more than armchair activism so I thought it would be nice to raise a bit of money for a good cause by not shaving, especially when there are no social consequences of it right now”.
Representing the College Historical Society (the Hist), Maitiú Charleton believes men’s mental health struggles are “a product of oppressive monolithic ideals of what a man is” and hopes this campaign will “promote appreciation” for brothers, fathers, grandfathers and all men in our lives.
“I had only seen [Movember] as something for sports clubs and pubs, and that’s obviously not what a man is”, he said. “Men are in clubs like the Hist, men are on rugby teams, men are in language societies, men are on the committee of FashionSoc and it’s important that people see Movember as rightly encompassing, celebrating and helping every kind of guy”.
It is not only men who can get involved in this worthy cause. Some women have taken up physical challenges for Movember. Second-year deaf studies student Elizabeth McGinn, for example, has set herself the challenge of running 30 minutes every day for the 30 days of November.
“As a woman, I think it’s so important to get involved with male mental health organisations. It’s as simple as wishing a good life on everyone around you. I think it’s critical to stand in solidarity with our friends and family because you’d hope they’d do the same for us”. McGinn is also Environmental Officer of Trinity Surf Club and believes it is “so important” to get involved in charitable organisations as a member of a society.
Movember is a client of the ISCG, a pro-bono student run consulting group.
In August, a group of nine ambassadors were chosen to help ensure the success of the campaign in Trinity. Perhaps the most visible sign of November in Trinity – other than the moustaches – is the campaign’s Instagram account, @movembertcd, led by one of the ambassadors Declan Kinaghan.
