Last month 12 brave InSites Mo Bros and I stood up and took on the challenge of growing a ‘tache to raise awareness for ‘Movember’. By the end of the month we managed to raise £621 and a lot of eyebrows too from clients and colleagues alike. Movember as an initiative is something that I hold dear and I’m glad that collectively we practiced what we preached and significantly levelled up my game from previous years. This being my third Movember, it was fantastic to see faces from all of our offices across the globe getting involved and sharing the message.

The issues of prostate cancer, testicular cancer and – my focus for this year – male mental health are slowly being revolutionised thanks to the initiative. It is clear that there are many men out there who are still afraid to talk about their health issues with partners, doctors, family and friends. The one thing I feel that Movember truly does to help is to literally put the issues right under the male population’s noses. Growing out the handlebars is my way of saying to the world “you know what, it’s ok to not be ok” and of course raise some money to help out a wealth of worthy causes.
In many ways the Movember initiative reflects a lot of the health and pharma research we conduct at InSites. A great example is our work for Nutricia, talking to teens about PKU. As a condition it is quite rare but the InSites UK team worked hard to find these teens and get them to talk about their lives, their diets and their medication. In fact a recent blog from Martijn Huisman highlighted some more examples of our healthcare research with professionals.
Overall, this has been my most successful Movember yet and I’m keen to take on the challenge again next year by donning a ‘tache and getting the conversation started about men’s health. Thanks again to all the InSites Mo Bros and to InSites for helping me in my cause.
And just for a bit of fun, check out the InSites Mo Bros growing journey :).