TO SCHOOL PRINCIPALS
GRAFITTI
I notice the disused garage next to Dimocks 100% in Hawera’s High Street is still a visual blight.
Six months ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the Taranaki Star blasting the landowner for making no effort to tidy up this eyesore that’s riddled with graffiti.
Since my letter and the Mayor speaking to the property owner I can see no evidence of any improvements. Except (ironically) that the council has widened and resurfaced the footpath near the offending building.
There’s no excuse for this arrogant slackness. Even if the property owner was skint the council is able to offer free paint to help cover the offensive graffiti.
What a contrast, the STDC is spending $12m upgrading Hawera’s CBD and making the town look stunning, while this property owner won’t even clean their offending building. What’s further incredulous is the disused building is for sale.
Bryan Vickery
New Plymouth We are writing to you today, because we need your help.
We believe you have the power to help save young men’s lives with one simple act; making an exemption to your school rules, and letting your students grow moustaches for a month.
This November, men across New Zealand will be growing them to show their support for men’s health and wellbeing.
But as you might be aware, a number of young men at schools are unable to participate because of rules which prohibit the growth of facial hair.
If you already allow your students to participate in Movember this year, please forgive us. But if you don’t, please hear why we think you should.
Men don’t like to talk about their health. Unlike women, who are encouraged from a young age to be open about their feelings, there’s an expectation that opening up about their health is some sort of weakness, that they should ‘take it like a man’.
And as a result, we’re losing many of them far too young. New Zealand has the highest rate of male youth suicide in the world.
We have to get them talking to each other, and their refusal to do so is, in many ways, more toxic than any disease.
That’s why Movember exists. For the month of November, men sport moustaches for prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health, suicide awareness, and other health issues affecting men.
These hairy badges are a way for men to open up conversations, inspire donations and change, in their own, uniquely male, way.
Allowing students at your school the opportunity to participate in Movember is an incredible opportunity to get young men, together as one, talking about issues that are affecting their lives, and creating some real change.
You can give them the opportunity to grow, not just a moustache, but a healthy mindset.
Let’s get them wearing moustaches on the sports field, in the classroom, in the playground, and facing each other man to man, mo to mo, and changing the face of men’s health.
Robert Dunne
The Movember Foundation
WRITE TO US
We welcome letters to the editor, 250 words or less preferred. Published at the sole discretion of the editor and they may be edited. Include your address and phone number (not for publication). Send to Taranaki Star, 96 Collins St, 4610 or PO Box 428, Hawera or email to star@dailynews.co.nz. Deadline: Fridays 4pm.