Andy’s Man Club: Proof that Mental Health is Gender Inclusive
“Monday morning he goes and buys a rope. Takes his life. Found dead Tuesday morning. No sign, no signal, no warning, no nothing.”
On November 13th of 2017, Luke Ambler, a former professional rugby player and now founder of Andy’s Man Club, gave a talk on mental health at IE Segovia. The speech attempted to inspire students with his life story, but also focused on raising awareness on male mental health issues and suicide prevention.
Luke founded Andy’s Man Club in 2016, after Andy, his 23-year-old brother-in-law, unexpectedly took his own life. The tragedy made him realize that men need a space where sharing their life difficulties is socially acceptable. According to Ambler, Andy showed no signs of being suicidal. Even more, he spoke to him about future plans such as buying a house.
Sadly, what happened to Andy is not uncommon. In 2015 alone, the suicide prevention charity Samaritans, reported that 4,997 of the 6,639 people who ended their own lives in the UK were men. According to the World Health Organization, these figures do not differ much in the rest of Europe, where all countries had higher suicide rates for males compared to females in 2015.
As a response to the issue, the first club opened in Halifax, England, as a small meeting of nine men who were willing to help and listen to one another. With growing success, illustrated by over twenty thousand likes on Facebook and fourteen clubs scattered around the UK, the club's aim became to “halve the number of suicides in men under 45.”
As told by Ambler during his conference at IE, the reunions have been so helpful, that men are often referred or recommended to attend by professionals.
To further expand the reach of his message, Luke launched a social media campaign with the hashtag: #Itsoktotalk. Ambler says that the campaign is based on the idea that men very often do not seek help for mental health issues, afraid to be seen as a burden or weak by their friends and family.
According to him, the campaign had over a hundred million ambassadors overnight, including big personalities from the likes of Ricky Gervais or author Irvine Welsh.
Luke Ambler recommends everyone who is not feeling their best to ask for help.
“Whether you've got a problem or you haven't, if you're just feeling a little bit down, reach out, speak to people, tell them how you're feeling, and never let it get too bad, and if you have got a serious condition, reach out and get help, because it's okay to talk, and we all go through struggles in life, and it's just finding the positivity.”
If you need to talk, IE provides sessions with a psychologist. Contact Taiki (Taiki.Kubota@ie.edu) or Anna (Anna.Lown@ie.edu) to book a session.
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