University of Worcester men's cricket club work together to highlight mental health and break any barriers
The university's men's cricket club have been taking on a series of challenges aimed to shine a spotlight on mental health and encourage conversations about the topic
A University of Worcester sports team has been working together to break down any barriers regarding mental health and to highlight it.
Throughout November the men's cricket club committed to growing moustaches and aiming to cover as many miles as possible through its members in various ways such as running, walking and cycling, targeting up to 4,000.
Alongside the distance the group were also fundraising for Movember, a men’s health charity, as well as prostate and testicular cancer.
One of the organisers third year student Jack Yendall said it was something they felt was important to raise awareness of and talk about.
He said: "I think it's very easy, specifically for a group of young lads all sort of between 18 and 25, that all of us can sometimes think it's quite easy to not speak about certain things and think that we're supposed to be fine.
"Specifically university, it's supposed to be such a brilliant experience and you're supposed to be really enjoying yourself but actually a lot of the times some people can be suffering from feeling quite lonely despite being surrounded by so many of us.
"So the key thing for us in the challenges that we created was loads of opportunities to be sociable and some internal focus in making sure we’re checking up on each other."
Members also took on extra challenges such as running with cricket pads on, bleaching their hair, having their head shaved, and even having a Movember tattoo.
Many ran a 5km in cricket whites, while one student on placement on the other side of the world adding 5km each day and another ran and walked 40km in one go.
"You’re creating loads of opportunities to be surrounded by your friends and actually that makes it really easy to develop really fast and like meaningful connections with people," Mr Yendall said.
"A lot of us would probably all say that our best friends and our closest ones are within the men's cricket society, we're a really tight-knit group and it makes conversations like that slightly easier.
"Obviously being young men and the way sort of sharing feelings can be viewed sometimes, it can still be a little bit tricky, so we're trying to sort of break those barriers down a bit more as well."
Further support
Further information and support can be found on the NHS website or on Mind Coventry, Warwickshire and Worcestershire's.