Its main goal is to “change the face of men’s health on a global scale, focusing on mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer.”

I had the pleasure of speaking with the owners of natural wine bar Travia in Lagos, Lee Moulton and Maria Lemos, who started the Movember Algarve event last year. “It was a huge success and lots of people came together to raise an incredible €5,000” and they are running the event throughout this month.

Lee Moulton has been a resident in the Algarve for eight years, adding that it is a great place to be. He also shared that he got “involved in Movember through Burgau Rugby, a few of us grew a moustache but I decided I did not want to stop there and I wanted to get people to unite for an important cause and have support in numbers to raise awareness.”

“This year has been difficult in terms of getting sponsorships compared to last year which I think is due to the pandemic.” I know they would both appreciate if as many people could get involved as possible, as it is not too late! Currently if you donate €20, you get a Movember t-shirt and you also get a free shave at the end of the month, at their partner barber shops where you can pick up your Movember t-shirt. Lee Moulton explained that “€5 go towards the t-shirt and €15 goes directly to Movember which is why to get a t-shirt.”

“Individuals can get involved by donating and raising awareness by growing a moustache, which gets the conversation started or they could host an event to raise money for Movember.” At the end of the month, they will be doing a “Mo” competition, where they will share men’s moustaches and you can vote on the best “Mo” with great prizes to be won! Similarly, “if restaurants and businesses would like to sponsor Movember, they can host events to raise funds. If you would like to get in touch, please email Lee Moulton at movember.algarve@gmail.com.”

Not just for men

Maria Lemos explained that “women can get involved too with fake mo’s and raise awareness of the initiative on social media. Movember Algarve is all about everyone getting involved as the figures really speak for themselves when it comes to men’s health. We really want to make a hub of the Algarve and hopefully in the future we can become the official representative for Portugal and we hope to continue to grow every year.”

There will be a Golf event on 18 November at Burgau Sports centre where they have at least 70 people participating which is sponsored by Sagres 0.0, this event is all about having fun. The 70 people taking part will all donate €20 and will be wearing their Movember t-shirts. Movember Algarve will also have an end of the month party on the 27 November from 7pm on Rua Marreiros Netto in Lagos. The event is open to all and kindly sponsored by Sagres 0.0 and Beer & Co Restaurant. They will have live music, a free shave, a raffle and there will be donation buckets. “This year was all about promoting the events and getting people talking about Movember.”

For more information and to get involved please see
http://bit.ly/movemberalgarve. You can also follow Movember Algarve on Facebook @movemberalgarve and on Instagram at @movember_algarve. To learn more about Movember and their global projects please see https://ex.movember.com/.

Author

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes