Movember!

Donate to Help A Child here.

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14 November 2011 was Children’s Day in India. We know this for sure because there was a special Google Doodle on Google India:

It also fell during Movember, a month-long awareness drive for prostate cancer & men’s health awareness in which willing and able men grow a moustache for charity.

I have elected to combine the two for a sort of Children’s Day Movember.

Reason one is because I was a child once, and would like to show my support for all those Indian kids who didn’t have the very fortunate upbringing I did.

Reason two is because I actually know someone who works for an NGO that specifically offers unprivileged Indian children a chance at a better life. It’s called Help A Child. From their About Us page:

Help A Child’s vision is of an India where all young people are able to continue their higher education and excel, regardless of their financial status and background. We work towards this goal by providing scholarships to highly motivated underprivileged students who have scored well in their studies.

My friend’s name is Andrea and I know exactly how hard she works, virtually every day, at pushing these young lives forward into a better future than they would otherwise have access to. I’m confident that if I or anyone else donates money to Help A Child, Andrea and the rest of the team will put it to good use. Have a look around their site. Hopefully you’ll get the same sense of deep caring and altruism from them that I do.

So, with India being the land of moustaches, I’m growing a Movember mo for Help A Child. In fact, I’ve already started. Here’s how I looked on Nov 1, cleanly shaven:

And then, on Nov 12, raw material followed by finished product!

I was trying to look like Salvador Dali in the second pic but a) I don’t have the right moustache b) I look more like a mass murderer than a surrealist. I am shortly going to shave off the beardy part and just leave the upper lip crust.

And again, it’s all for charity. So if you have a credit card or Indian debit card/bank account, please visit Help A Child’s donation page and donate your very good and valued Rupees or Dollars or whatever. (Please put ‘BarnabyMovember’ in the ‘Instructions’ field so they can track the amount that comes in.)

If you don’t have any of the above cards/account but are moved by either the children’s plight or my own, and are based in New Zealand, you are most welcome to post or transfer good and valued Dollars to me, which I will then forward to Help A Child. You can leave a comment below if you don’t have any other way of getting in touch.

My suggested amounts are Rs 1000 or NZ$25, but put down however much you feel like or can spare. In a country like India, where the margins between success/failure and life/death are so small, every little bit really does help. I’ve kicked things off with a donation of Rs 2000.

Thanks for reading and (hopefully) not recoiling in horror! Hoping some good comes out of this.

(PS: Prostate cancer & men’s health are perfectly worthy causes too. Feel free to give generously to them instead, or all of the above!)

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UPDATE 28/11/2011: Here’s what I look like after 28 days of no shaving above the upper lip and 1 day of excessive sun exposure!

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UPDATE 30/11/2011: Hi.

Things turned out all right. Nobody made fun of me on the train (or at work) the whole month! Except when I made this face. Running away screaming counts as making fun of someone, right?

One last time, on this last day of November, please visit Help A Child and look at the work they do – and if you’re feeling good about them, donate.

Huge thanks to everyone who has already done so. A final update with the overall tally is forthcoming.