Every year in November, the Movember Foundation invites men around the world to grow a mustache to communicate about male cancers, which are still too little known, and to raise funds for research. Why Doctor exchanged with the association’s French spokesperson, Stéphane Beaumont, a former testicular cancer patient.
“Mustaches are needed to save bros”. Who hasn’t heard the famous Movember slogan? Since 2003, every November, the Australian Movember Foundation Charity has invited men around the world to grow a mustache in order to raise awareness and funds for research into men’s diseases such as prostate cancer. prostate or testicles. In recent years, the Movember movement has grown more and more, thanks in particular to social networks, and the Foundation has collected around 465 million euros. On its site, it is proud to have “funded more than 1,250 projects around men’s health around the world, challenging the status quo, shaking up research on this subject and transforming the way health services reach and support men.”
But how to participate in the cause? In practice, it’s very simple. “The principle of collection is global: there is a Movember site depending on the country. Each individual must create their profile or can form a team and contribute to their mustache. Either a hair attribute that rarely pleases the companions and generally creates tension in the couple”, laughs the spokesperson Movember France, Stéphane Beaumont, interviewed by Why Doctor. After seeing the mustachioed profile circulating on social networks, Internet users, close or not close, make a donation directly on the website. They then receive a donation certificate by e-mail “because it is exempt since the association is recognized as being of public utility”, he specifies.
Beyond the mustache, to raise awareness among those around you, you can also challenge yourself to take better care of yourself and encourage other men to do the same, by organizing races with friends, for example. We can also say to ourselves “I no longer take the elevator but the stairs, I go down one metro station earlier”, continues Stéphane Beaumont. And of course, “the third way to collect donations and get people talking about the association is to organize special moments. I am currently organizing afterworks for example. It’s friendly, we spend a very good evening together and we can discuss these problems in a preventive way”, explains the spokesperson for Movember France.
“If I had known what testicular cancer was, I might have waited less”
A survivor of testicular cancer, Stéphane Beaumont discovered the foundation in 2010 during a rugby match organized at the Australian Embassy. “Most of the players participated in Movember and therefore had sublime mustaches. I thought it was a bet between sportsmen but one of the players explained to me what it was really about. I immediately registered on the English website. The following year, the French site was launched and I was contacted by Movember because not many of us had registered internationally and said that we lived in France. Then, three years ago, they asked me to become their spokesperson in France: I was the only Frenchman to have taken part in all the campaigns and to have raised more than €1,000 in donations. This is a cause close to my heart. If I had known what testicular cancer was, I might have waited less and avoided some chemotherapy inconvenience,” he says.
For him, the strength of the foundation lies in its overall coherence. “Movember has quickly become the control magnifying glass for various research programs around the world. We sometimes have requests from Australia for certain research, but such a French professor also does the same type of work and we will then have them work together. The foundation really has global governance in terms of research programs and donations to try to coordinate them and get everyone to go in the same direction. What they call the True North”he analyzes.
Their mission: to reduce the difference in life between women and men. Because at the global level, “there is a little more than five years of difference in life expectancy, which makes no sense from a physiological point of view”, indicates Stéphane Beaumont. This could therefore be accomplished through medical research, of course, but also through suicide prevention.
Breaking the taboo around these diseases “linked to virility”
Because sick men would be much more likely to end their lives than women with cancer. “For several years, I have noticed that men don’t talk about their problems, they absorb them and don’t talk about them. Between women, there is a freedom of speech, solidarity and an exchange on these medical problems while the men still have a certain modesty. Does it come from education or from the fact that male cancers affect the genitals, which can damage the image of the strong and virile man? I do not know. Still, women communicate much more openly about breast cancer while, statistically in France, there are more cases of Prostate cancer (71,000 new cases estimated in 2011, editor’s note) than breast cancer (53,000 new cases over the same period, editor’s note)”, notes the spokesperson.
And to insist on the importance of communicating: “I was sick with cancer and we are recovering very well. But at the time it happened to me, I didn’t talk about it at work. A few people I was very close to knew it, but I didn’t want to show myself sick. I lost my hair at the first chemo and as it was the fashion for bald heads, I kept it and everyone told me that it was a look that suited me well. It was a small lie but it was stupid. You have to dare to talk about it.”
To communicate as much as possible about male cancers, Stéphane Beaumont is also involved in the French association Cerhom which offers “exchanges, listening and contact” with patients. And, in order to break the taboos linked to male diseases, Cerhom and Movember have joined forces to produce several short films. In 2018, the two associations released a series of videos with the name “A Real Balls Movie”. This year, prevention is focused on prostate cancer. The first spot, “Breakdown blow”, will be broadcast from November 5th. In the meantime, to your barbers.
See below “A Real Balls Movie”:
.
