FACING UP TO MEN’S HEALTH

The Movember campaign was a great success and is growing as a movement, Sub-Officer Jonathan Forbes tells Adam Hyland

The annual Movember initiative organised and run by the Frontline MO-BROs continues to grow from strength to strength, and given the importance placed on general health and mental health awareness within Dublin Fire Brigade, it is tting that members of DFB continue to play a pivotal role in this campaign.

Alongside national re services, An Garda Síochána, the National Ambulance Service, the Defence Forces and Air Corp, Coast Guard and Civil Defence, DFB members have always shown a willingness to put pride aside for one month and grow sometimes un attering facial hair to get the conversation going around men’s health.

Challenge

Every year sees the organisation take on a main challenge, and this year’s headline event was the Head To Head Challenge, with frontline workers walking the 40km+ from Bray to Howth, with DFB members covering the distance in full PPE, helmet and BA set.

“One of the Frontline MO-BROs team, Airman Aaron Crompton, had been getting Air Corps members to walk across the Dublin Mountains for a few years running,” Frontline MO-BROs Captain and Sub-O cer Jonathan Forbes of C Watch Phibsboro tells me, “so we said let’s make it bigger and better this year, open it to the public and to all frontline services, and walk through the main thoroughfares of the city to try to bring the maximum awareness to the public.

“DFB and Dublin Airport Fire and Rescue personnel walked it in full PPE, weighing in at around 26 kilos, so it was tough going, but it helped get us noticed and get the message out there of what we are trying to do.”

Raising awareness is key to the initiative, but every year the campaign also raises a considerable amount of money for men’s health charities, and Sub-O cer Forbes says the response from the public this year was once more incredible.

“ e response on the day was fantastic, and over the course of the month we raised more than €53,000. A lot of that was from members getting sponsored, and from bucket collections on the day. e buckets were an extra weight, but it was a weight we didn’t mind carrying!”

Other events also took place across the country.

“We had members of the Defence Forces in Galway walking 40km around Carrauntoohil, others walking the distance up Croagh Patrick, gardaí around the country doing the same distance around their locality, so we had more than 100 people taking part nationwide, a broad spectrum of people from all emergency services. We presented a united front and combined all of our resources.”

Growing

Just like the facial hair each member has adorned, the Movember initiative has grown over the years, Sub-O cer Forbes tells me.

“We had something like 198 members of the Frontline MO-BROs taking part from across all emergency services, and some of those individuals were actually teams, so for example you had the Defence Forces over in Syria all under the one name, so it was a massive increase on what we have had over the years, which is great.” is can only lead to more awareness of the issues at hand within the emergency services, where the message of putting bravado aside and opening up about health concerns is so important.

“ ere is de nitely a heightened awareness of the need to talk about mental health and men’s health in general now,” Sub-O cer Forbes says. “People are more inclined to talk to their colleagues, partner or friends. e stigma and the bravado of the uniformed job where it is not the done thing to talk about your feelings is starting to dissipate.

“Having the likes of the CISM team and other supports that are available to you, whenever and however you want or need it, is great. It is impartial, you can talk to somebody who has been through the same stu as you, they are one of your peers, so it is a lot easier for men and women to talk about it.”

Combining forces to utilise media contacts and gain publicity saw Frontline MO-BRO members do numerous radio interviews, but other events also took place to put the campaign in the public eye.

“Detective Superintendent Sé McCormack of An Garda Síochána did a lot of our radio coverage, but we had other events running throughout the month too,” own jeep decked out in MO-BRO logos and drove it around Dublin to raise awareness.”

Sam also o ered free shaves to all participating members at the start of the month so they could begin growing their moustaches in earnest, and Sub-O cer Forbes is keen to thank him, as well as Clive Carroll of dublintown.ie, who was taken on as public relations o cer and brought a lot of exposure to the cause.

“Special mention must go to Aaron Crompton of the Air Corp, Jonathan Tu of the Defence Forces, and Sé McCormack of An Garda Síochána though, as they were the three main contacts for the big agencies and organisations, who brought in so much support,” Sub-O cer Forbes adds.

Conversation Starter

As for the small matter of growing a moustache to get noticed, he says there were varying degrees of success.

“At one stage we were talking about sending some Miracle Gro to some of the re and police stations to help them out,” he jokes. “It has also been known that some members have been using Just For Men to make their facial hair look more impressive.

“It’s all in good spirits though. It’s the worst moustaches that make the conversation, because when you see the

Figures

e stats show why this is still so important. e latest available gures from 2019 show that there were 11 men diagnosed with prostate cancer every single day in Ireland.

“ ose are crazy numbers, and obviously it is not good to have that many people diagnosed, but the positive side is that it at least shows men are getting checked more now,” Sub-O cer Forbes says.

“But on the mental health side of things, in 2021 there were more than 300 men who died by suicide, with three out of every four suicides in Ireland is by a male. e leading cause of death in males in Ireland between the ages of 15 and 29 is suicide. at is a gure that has to be changed, and it can be changed by men talking to each other about how they are feeling.

Message

“ e world has changed, and things that were accepted ten, 20 years ago, are not accepted anymore. e things you would have had to go through on your own back then, you don’t have to go through alone anymore. ere are people you can talk to, and ways to look a er yourself better.

“We are on all the social media platforms @frontlinemobros and they are all monitored 24/7, so if you need to talk, there is always someone there to point you towards trained professionals, whether that be Pieta House, Suicide or Survive, or Samaritans. Or if you just want to see what we are all about, check out our socials.”

Next year will be the Frontline MO-BROs tenth anniversary, and plans are already underway to make Movember even bigger.

Sub-O cer Forbes tells me. “ e Air Corp had a co ee and information morning at Baldonnell, and Airman Glen Tyson of the Air Corp ran a tattoo event in Voodoo Tattoo in Finglas.

“Corporal Jonathan Tu of the Defence Forces also did the Four Peaks Challenge in under 30 hours wearing a 10 kilo weight vest. He was exhausted by the end, but the main challenge for him was the logistics of getting from one mountain to another, and we had some great support there from Sam Donnelly, owner of Sam’s Barbers in Dublin, who is one of our founding members. He provided transport on the day, and had his really bad ones, they are the ones that get the laugh, and get the conversation going, and that conversation creates awareness, which in turn creates donations and gets the message out there.

“It is all about having some craic over the course of 30 days, and bringing all of those services together. e inter-agency rivalry disappears completely because it is everybody looking out for each other and trying to get publicity and awareness for Movember itself, for the Frontline MO-BRO team, and getting that message out there about men’s health and mental health.”

“A few of us have already signed up to do the Dublin City Marathon in full PPE, so if anybody wants to get involved, get in touch with me,” Sub-O cer Forbes says.

“Since we started ten years ago, the team has raised more than €350,000, and we are hoping to break the €400,000 next year, so more participants would be great. We are getting repeat participants as well as new people every year, and that in turn creates awareness, brings in more publicity, and gets the message across of who we are and what we are doing. Hopefully, we will have more people next year signing up to help us with our message, a few more moustaches to get the conversation going around men’s health.”