Mo Bro Alfonso joins awareness campaign
SHAVING his moustache while diving underwater at the 2 Oceans Aquarium on the Waterfront yesterday was former homeless street-kid turned professional surfer Alfonso Peters’s way of supporting a men’s health and cancer-awareness campaign.
Explaining his novel way of supporting the global wide Movember Foundation’s “Movember Shave Challenge Shoot” campaign in South Africa, where men are encouraged to shave their moustaches before November starts and only to shave again after November, he said: “We were swimming with the turtles and big fish while I was shaving off my moustache under the water for about 20 to 30 minutes.
“The experience was scary, it was my first time diving underwater with scuba gear.
“I was with Kai Linder (Movember Foundation representative in South Africa) and Jason Webber. We were doing it for testicular and prostate cancer, for mental health and to help prevent males from committing suicide.”
He said he would shave again on November 1, to accommodate the Movember campaign, and go without shaving for the whole of November, only to shave on December 1.
Linder, in explaining the origins and reasons behind the founding of the Movember campaign, said that for 30 days in the month of November, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas, (supporters of the Movember campaign) around the world would be raising funds and create awareness for the often-ignored issues surrounding men’s health.
Prostate cancer rates will double in the next 15 years, according to the World Health Organisation, which points out that testicular cancer rates had already doubled in the last 50 years, while three quarters of suicides are men.