Movember, the month formerly known as November, is when brave and selfless men around the world grow a moustache, with the support of the women in their lives, to raise awareness and funds for men’s health - specifically prostate and testicular cancer.

Movember was established in 2003 by a few friends over a beer in a pub just outside Melbourne, Australia. The goal was simple – to create a campaign promoting the growth of the moustache among likeminded people and having fun along the way. It is about real men, talking about real issues and changing the face of men’s health, one moustache at a time. Movember now spans the globe, with campaigns in 21 countries in 2012.

The Movember Moustache has become the equivalent of the breast cancer pink ribbon for men’s health. 'Mo Bros', as participants are known, sporting upper lip hair, effectively become walking talking billboards for the 30 days of Movember raising funds and much needed awareness around the often ignored issues of men’s health.

In 2011, over 854,288 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas (the women that support them) raised over £79.3 million globally and over 254,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas raised over £22 million in the UK. Mo Bros start the month clean shaven, then grow and groom their moustache all month long.

Mo Bros and Mo Sistas can register to participate at www.movember.com Funds raised in the UK are directed to programmes run by Movember and their men’s health partners Prostate Cancer UK and The Institute of Cancer Research.

If you're taking part this year, please let us know and post some pics to our Facebook page

Some key health facts:

• 1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK – one man is diagnosed every 15 minutes 
• A man will die from prostate cancer every hour - more than 10,000 men will die of the disease this year in the UK 
• African Caribbean men are three times more likely to develop prostate cancer 
• You are 2.5 times more likely to develop prostate cancer if your father or brother has had it 
• Occurrences of prostate cancer in men are comparable to the rates of breast cancer in women 
• 2,209 men in the UK were diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2009 
• 47% of testicular cancer cases occur in men under 35 years and over 90% occur in men under 55 years