Movember challenge at Oakham School
The month of November has seen staff and pupils taking on the Movember challenge, fundraising for the charity which raises awareness on Men’s Health, particularly mental health, and male cancers.
The boys’ houses have raised well over an impressive £1000 through the growth of their moustaches, with Chapmans House raising a formidable £800 alone.
Owen Hughes, Housemaster of Chapmans, said, “Thank you to Kiril and the rest of the Form 6 boys for driving this fundraising forward in House and thank you to the many generous parents for donating. It is really important to speak about these issues within schools, particularly how to check for specific cancers, and it was great to see conversations taking place. The many different moustaches have been a great source of entertainment and discussion.”
Seventh Former and DECEM member Dan has also been organising events and activities in support of the campaign.
Dan commented, “We wanted to educate and encourage active participation for Movember this year. It has been noticeable in recent times that we merely donate to a charity simply because that is the expectation. To challenge this, we held a series of assemblies in House Time and in the Wilson Auditorium on the importance and significance of Movember to ensure pupils understand what a charity stands for and where the money is going. The Matthews Society, a Form 7 society that discusses the latest relevant issues, also engaged in a meaningful discussion about how to tackle the stigma surrounding men’s mental health.”
Dan added, “We have also encouraged active participation throughout the month, in line with one of the Movember initiatives ‘to get moving’. A group of pupils ran the Rutland Night 10km near Normanton Church, which Form 7 pupil Monty impressively finished in under 45 minutes. The boys in School have been going on daily runs, covering over 350km over the month with some tired legs by the end. More extraordinary, in a similar fashion, Form 7 pupil Jono is running a half marathon a day for 25 days this December to raise money for the charity: Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) and has already raised nearly £3,000.”
Dan concluded, “We believe this is just the beginning of our efforts as a school to install a new way of supporting charities, and we look forward to continuing our efforts throughout the rest of the year.”
Donations can still be made here.
