For many of us November means three things: burning effigies, Pumpkin Spice Lattes and, most importantly, launch of the John Lewis Christmas advert. But for men across the world, it relates to an abundance of beards and mustaches. Usually associated with ‘Mo-vember’, November gives the opportunity to men everywhere to raise money for prostate cancer. 

Aimee Burgess, a Sixth Form student at Oriel High School in Crawley, is urging pupils to go ‘bare-faced’ for skin cancer awareness. Whilst not the first to do this, Burgess is inspired by similar charity challenges that have happened previously and brings it to Oriel High School in the hopes that she will inspire and encourage other students to raise money and get involved. Since ‘Mo-vember’ gives the opportunity for male students to take part, Burgess wants the opportunity to be available for women: “running this along side Mo-vember means everyone can have a go at doing something to raise the money and the awareness,” she says. Driven by a history of skin cancer in her family, Burgess explains that she doesn’t want it to happen again, or for anyone else to go through it: “It was heartbreaking.” 

Skin cancer is one of the common cancers in the world, melanoma being most common in young adults from the age of 15 to 34. According to Cancer Research UK, there were 15,419 new cases of melanoma skin cancer in 2014 and 86% of those cases of melanoma skin cancer were preventable. Raising awareness with the help of her Sixth Form allows students of all ages to be aware of the risks and the ways to reduce the chances of developing skin cancer as well as educating pupils and teachers of how they can participate. 

There are many ways to get involved including donating directly to Macmillan, a charity dedicated to helping people with different cases of cancer. They have fundraising suggestions on their website for anyone willing to get involved with nationwide events such as ‘All Out Swim’, an event which encourages people to donate money for completing swimming challenges. Burgess describes how she would love the sixth form to participate in ‘bare-faced’ November by sponsoring a friend or filling out sponsorship forms in order to raise money for skin cancer. 

“I’d love women for women to be given the opportunity to raise money in November for skin cancer since it’s usually the boys who are the ones taking part in all the fundraising. I think it’s a good idea to do, as it means everyone is getting involved,” Burgess shares. 

If you want to know more, go to Macmillan’s website to know how you can get involved this forthcoming month: http://macmillian.org.uk

Mhari Grace, Oriel High School.

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