Nice to meet Alex whilst on a cigarette break outside work. A talented young photographer who somehow managed to make a corporate exterior look all the more interesting. Check his Insta: @_alex_fleming_
A year ago today, I appeared on London Live to talk about International Men’s Day. More specifically, I was there to discuss the work we’d been carrying out on CALMzine, a youth publication aimed at young men to raise awareness of male suicide in the UK. I was brought in at that time to help with the 2015 Autumn/Winter issue.
It’s a well reported statistic that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. I’d encourage everyone to really pause and think about that. It’s a silent epidemic that has been taking the lives of men in our society for years and up until now, little has been said of it. Organisations like CALM are courageously leading the charge to raise awareness and provide support for all those affected.
As a society, we need to help our men. We need to create safer, more permissive spaces for men to both express and experience themselves. CALMzine does this brilliantly by enabling young men to tell their stories in an accessible, non-threatening and engaging way.
On top of this, it offers an opportunity for talented young people to write and explore their creativity, to access networks that otherwise might remain closed off to them, to gain experience that will help them build careers in the long-term. I’m thinking in particular of a young guy called Lawrence who we ended up getting to interview Olly from Years & Years, himself a great role model and advocate of mental health issues as they relate to young people.
CALMzine is a fantastic publication that I’m incredibly proud to have been given the opportunity to work on, write for and represent. The magazine recently won the Mind Media Award for Publication of the Year. In doing so, it’s rightly getting the recognition that it (and the issues that it addresses) both desperately needs and deserves. Here’s hoping more people take their lead in creating these safe spaces for men to have these conversations. There’s still a long way to go.
For anyone interested, you can pick up a free copy of CALMzine in Topman.
You can watch the full London Live interview here.
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