International Men’s Day.

International Men’s Day was first marked in Trinidad and Tobago in 1999 and is now recognised in around eighty countries. In the UK it has become the day organisations notice men’s health, which is useful, though it does mean a lot of the attention arrives and leaves inside twenty four hours.

The themes it returns to are consistent: male suicide, men’s physical health, men as fathers and carers, positive male role models, and the gap between how men are doing and how they say they are doing.

What it stands for

The day has six aims. In plain terms: positive male role models, the ordinary ones as much as the famous ones. The good men do for their families, their communities and the places they live. Men’s health and wellbeing, physical and mental. The places men and boys are treated unfairly, which rarely get talked about. Better relations between men and women, and real equality. And a safer world for everyone in it.

You do not need to sign up to all six to mark the day. Most people pick the one closest to home.

Why it matters here

Suicide is the biggest killer of men under fifty in the UK, and ONS figures show around three in four suicides are men. Those are the numbers that get quoted every November, and they are worth quoting, but they describe an outcome rather than a cause.

What sits underneath is more ordinary. Men lose touch with their friends slowly, over years, without noticing it happen. Work takes the time, family takes the rest, and one day a man realises there is nobody he would ring at ten at night. That is not a crisis in itself. It is the ground that crises grow in, and it is the part anyone can do something about.

What helps

Mandem Meetup started round a kitchen table, on a simple idea: men do not need fixing, they need somewhere to go and people to see. Football, walks, chess, a brew, and a talking circle for anyone who wants one.

It is not a theory. When Pro Bono Economics looked at the men who come to us, they found most arrive in the bottom five per cent nationally for wellbeing, and that a year of turning up lifts them by around three times the gain of an unemployed person finding work. Ninety seven per cent say they feel more connected to their community.

How to actually mark it

If you run an organisation, a post is fine but a standing commitment is better. Put something in the calendar that survives to December. The men in your building do not need one good conversation in November, they need somewhere to go in February.

If you are a bloke reading this, the most useful thing you can do costs nothing. Ring someone you have not spoken to in a while. Not to check on him, which puts him on the spot, just to talk. Or bring someone with you to a meetup that week. Every one of ours is free, and none of them needs a referral.

What we do on the day

We run our normal week, which is the point. Mandem Meetup is there the other three hundred and sixty four days as well, and the men who come in November are mostly the men who were already coming in October.

If you want to do something with us for International Men’s Day, whether that is your workplace, your team or just you, get in touch and we will find something sensible.