The month of November is now upon us and that means the appearance of novelty moustaches, grown in name of charity. In previous years I have shunned the calls to partake in Movember but, as it gets a little cold in Beijing over the winter, I thought the additional warmth might mitigate just how absurd my face is going to look for the remaining 25 days of the month.
But I’d like to do things a little differently.
First, as I was already proudly sporting a beard and moustache pre-November, it won’t be particularly exciting for people to see me start from scratch. Instead I have invented a new concept which I’ve called “Movember-plus”. Last Thursday, as October drew to a close, I shaved everything apart from my existing moustache, and I will now grow an additional month’s worth of upper lip hair. The benefit of this (for everyone else, at least) is that by the end of November I should have an even mightier, even more ridiculous-looking ‘tache.
The second deviation is where I’d like donations to go. Traditionally, the moustache is grown to raise money for men’s health, primarily prostate cancer. But I’m sure that many of our readers will agree that perhaps money might be directed towards kids – the ones who are still fifty years away from having to even worry about their prostates.
That’s why I’ll instead be raising money for one for beijingkids’ favorite charities, the New Life Centre (NLC). Founded in 2001, the charity provides education and support for some of China’s most vulnerable children – orphans, migrants’ children and those from broken homes. The NLC helps underprivileged children of all ages and as a small organization, donations of any size can still make a huge difference, so please give what you can.
We had a think about the best way for our readers to make donations. Rather than using a website like Paypal or Kickstarter (which will take a fee) we decided that it’s best for you to donate directly to the charity so it receives every last Jiao. All this process requires is a simple bank transfer, which shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds. You can, cliches aside, make a genuine difference.
Bank Name: Bank of China, Lido Hotel Branch
Account Name: Yang Xiao Ye
Account No: 335053625639
We’d really love to keep track of how much you have donated on our behalf, so we can thank you in full in our January magazine. All donations are “anonymized” by the bank before the charity receives them, so I’d be most grateful if you could let us know the amount you donated by email oscarholland@beijing-kids.com or just drop me a text to 18701315769.
For more information on how you can give and how your money will be used to transform kids’ lives, please take a look at the charity’s website here. They are also in need of things like computers, food, toiletries, clothing, bedding and stationary. Please email newlife.centre@yahoo.com if you think you might be able to help in this regard.
We’ll be taking a photo of my face every day until the end of the month, which we can hopefully transform into some kind of stop-motion gif.
