10 NEWS
THE COPENHAGEN POST CPHPOST.DK
28 October - 3 November 2011
Grow a mo’ and raise some dough PETER STANNERS Moustache-growing fundraiser reaches Denmark, as charity raises money to fund research into men’s health issues
O
N THE LAST DAY of October, hundreds of thousands of men across the world will give themselves a full clean shave. It will be the last time their upper lip will see the sharp edge of a razor until December. As their handlebars, Dalis and Fu Manchus start to take shape, they will be making more than just a fashion statement, they’ll be changing the face of men’s health. That is the basic idea behind the Movember Foundation (get it?), a charity that encourages men to find sponsorship to grow a moustache for a month to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues, such as prostate and testicular cancer. Last year 450,000 men raised over 400 million kroner worldwide. The foundation has come a long way since its humble beginnings in Melbourne, Australia. A group of men gathered in a pub and lamented the loss of the moustache in popular fashion. So it was decided they would bring the moustache back for
Whenever you meet your friends, you’re forced to explain what you’re doing the month of November. Thirty men compared their moustaches at the end of the first Movember in 2003. The following year 450 men took part, raising over 300,000 kroner to keep the initiative running. But the key organisers thought there were others who could better benefit from the money, and they ended up giving the money to the Australian Prostate Cancer Charity. It turned out that it was the largest single donation they had ever received. Movember has been increasing in popularity ever since and has so far raised over 800 million kroner worldwide. The money has been put towards a range of causes, though the main focus is tackling prostate cancer – the third most common cancer among Danish men, with a survival rate of only 30 percent after five years. So far, the funds have contributed to the discovery of 25 different types of pros-
tate cancer and the mapping of its genome, while in the UK specialist nurses are now on call 24 hours a day to help men cope with their diagnosis. According to the Bill McIntyre from the Movember Foundation, the campaign’s success is all due to some upper lip fuzz. “The rules are you have to completely shave then just grow the moustache, which means you have to be dedicated,” McIntyre told The Copenhagen Post. “It’s a tricky first ten days. But whenever you go to a meeting or meet your friends, you’re forced to explain what you’re doing. So by doing all this explaining, the awareness quickly spreads.” “Growing a mustache is a joy and I think the reason the campaign is so appealing is because you can sit on your sofa and just let it grow. But be warned, there is some pain involved as the itchiness factor sets in after the first week. That’s a pretty serious issue.” Denmark will officially get in on the ‘80s facial hair action this month as Movember launches a dedicated fundraising website for the country. “We’ve had loads of passionate emails from ‘Mo Bros’ on the ground who want the campaign to come to Denmark,” Mcintyre said. “It’s all rather exciting to us.”
BCCD lunch meeting, 28 October 2011 Tine Horwitz, Head of the Consortium for Global Talent talking about “The Challenge of Global Talent for Denmark” In addition to outlining the challenges which internationals working professionally in Denmark have identified as the key problems to making Denmark an attractive workplace in which they wish to stay, Tine will elaborate on how the new Danish government has indicated they will seek to work for improved conditions. Tine Horwitz has been heading up the the Consortium for Global Talent, a new initiative, since it’s set up in January 2010. The Consortium consists of 19 of the largest Danish and international companies, all of whom aim to attract and retain highly skilled global professionals in Denmark. It’s overall aim is to improve the conditions for foreign professionals and their families and to contribute to making Denmark one of the best places to live in, work and study. To achieve this, the Consortium collaborates closely with the Government, Ministries, public entities, labor organizations, foreign Chambers of Commerce, expat networks, universities, and private initiatives. Tine has previously worked for the World Health Organisation as a Legal Officer.
Event programme: 11.45 Registration & welcome drinks 12.00 Welcome & introduction by Mariano A. Davies, President, BCCD 12.05 Guest speaker - Tine Horwitz 12.30 Questions & discussion 12.55 Announcements by Penny Schmith, Executive Director, BCCD 13.00 Buffet lunch & networking Date Friday, 28 October 2011 Venue: Conference Suite on 1st floor, Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Hammerichsgade 1, Copenhagen K Members are welcome to bring guests at a charge of DKK 300 inc moms. Non-members may attend for DKK 350 inc moms, on request to the secretariat. If you sign up & later need to cancel your attendance, then please let us know by Wednesday 26 October, otherwise you will still need to pay. You can sign up via the website, send an email to event@bccd.dk or phone 31 18 75 58
• official media partner Denmark’s only English-language newspaper
Peter
Ben
Dima
Watch the Co’ Po’ grow a mo’ FOUR OF The Copenhagen Post staff – (clockwise from top left) editor-in-chief Kevin McGwin, journalist Peter Stanners, distribution coordinator Dima Paranytsia, and managing editor Ben Hamilton – are participating in Movember this year. Follow the development of their moustaches, and their fundraising, on our community pages and website. To sponsor any (or all) of them, please head to http://dk.movember.com and search for TheCopenhagenPostKevin, TheCopenhagenPostBen, TheCopenhagenPostPeter and/or TheCopenhagenPostDima. If you’re thinking of participating, simply head to www.movember.org and sign up.
How about a Danish with your Apple? JENNIFER BULEY
SCANPIX
BRITISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN DENMARK
Kevin
Denmark’s prince and princess – plus unofficial Danish royalty – take New York by storm
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F YOU have a week to spend in New York City, you might want to take a few tips from Prince Frederik and Princess Mary’s tour book. The future king and queen were in New York last week to paint the town red and white. When the pair weren’t giving television interviews and visiting schools in Harlem and Queens, they were eating jerk chicken in SoHo, watching a NY Jets (American) football game across the Hudson River, nibbling their way through the Union Square Farmers’ Market – Manhattan’s largest – and attending an opening of cool new Scandinavian art (‘Luminous Modernism’ at Scandinavia House). They also paid a visit to the 9/11 memorial site in lower Manhattan. Although the sun was shining, New York felt particularly Danish when the prince and princess showed up for the New Nordic Cookout at Union Square where renowned Danish chefs, Rene Redzepi of Noma and Adam Aamann of Aamanns, were standing behind the tables serving up both bites and soundbites.
Frederik and Mary check out a vendor’s vegetables at the New Nordic Cookout event at Union Square
New Yorkers can now get a genuine smørrebrød experience any time, as Aamann just opened his new restaurant serving the traditional openfaced sandwiches in New York’s downtown Tribeca neighbourhood. Meanwhile, uptown at 57th Street, the Danish architect wunderkind Bjarke Ingels was busy building his pyramidal, luxury apartment building. Later, the princess trekked across the East River to the borough of Queens to visit the landmark of another Dane who made his mark on New York: the 19th-century journalist and social reformer Jacob A Riis, who emigrated from Ribe to
Manhattan in 1870. The Jacob A Riis Neighbourhood Settlement House in Queens was established in 1950 to improve opportunities for inner city children and families. Today the community centre is still going strong, and the foundation arranges cultural exchanges in which urban New York children can get the chance to come to Denmark for a week and learn about Riis’s homeland. Princess Mary met some Queens residents, listened to stories about the cultural exchanges, and impressed at least a few young aspiring princesses. Frederik and Mary finished their New York trip on Tuesday.