“Movember” Men’s Mental Health Awareness Event at Mammoth

This past November, the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) and Team, Unity, Social, and Cultural (TUSC) committees at Mammoth organized a “Movember” event. As part of this event, individuals grew mustaches throughout November to raise awareness for men’s mental health issues.

At Mammoth, we participated in Movember with the objective of raising awareness, fostering conversations about mental health, and creating an inclusive environment where everyone can express themselves without hesitation or fear of judgment. We created a vision board where team members could showcase their mustaches (fake and real) in a colorful fashion. Team members could also write messages on the board to express their solidarity with men’s mental health awareness.

Below we describe how we organized this project with the hope that you can bring similar initiatives to your organization.

A guide to the practical execution of a Movember vision board

Team members who wanted to feature their mustaches on the board were given the following instructions:

Let it grow!

• Start with a clean shave on November 1st and grow out a mustache through November 30th
• Use provided mustache props if you cannot grow your own

Show it off!

• Take pictures of your mustache at the beginning and end of November with a provided polaroid camera at the vision board site 
• After snapping your pic, pin it to the board

Express yourself!

• Write your thoughts/messages in support of mental health on the board throughout the month

Sharing resources to support mental health

In addition to the vision board, team members were encouraged to share mental health resources with one another through our employee listserv. Some of the resources the team volunteered included:

• Mental health stats from the Movember Foundation website:
  https://us.movember.com/impact#/groups/life-stages
  
• A Movember Foundation initiative to encourage people to engage with mental health in an interactive way and start a conversation. The Movember Foundation calls this “Mo Your Own Way.”
  
• Movember Foundation personal mental health stories from men all around the world:
  https://us.movember.com/story?tag=mental-health
  
• Recommendations for ways individuals can help from the Movember Foundation: https://us.movember.com/
  
• Additional resources covering the challenges posed by men’s mental health and ways we can better incorporate men’s mental health into everyday life and work conversations:
  • https://epicassist.org/lets-talk-about-mens-health-in-the-workplace/
  • https://springhealth.com/mens-mental-health-stigma-myths/
  • https://social.hays.com/2019/10/06/podcast-24-how-men-can-open-up-about-their-mental-health-in-the-workplace/

The Mammoth Movember vision board

We had a wonderful turnout for this event. Almost all on-site employees participated by growing mustaches, showing them off on the vision board, and writing heartfelt messages in support of men’s health/mental health issues. At our workplace, we are proud to be a team full of compassion, love, and consideration for others.

Some of our favorite messages included:

“If you see a sad boy, talk to him. That may be what needs.”

“Mustaches become soft at day 21!”

Men’s mental health and mental health in general remain under-appreciated components of personal wellness. Although we focused on these topics this November, we hope to make them a permanent part of our culture. If you’d like to run similar projects at your workplace, we encourage you to take a look at the many resources provided by the Movember Foundation and use our event as a template!