It is No­vem­ber, and we are again ad­vo­cat­ing for men’s health in what has be­come wide­ly ac­cept­ed as “Movem­ber”, a move­ment to change men’s health. This month, as every year, we fo­cus on rais­ing aware­ness for men on men­tal health and sui­cide pre­ven­tion, prostate can­cer, and tes­tic­u­lar can­cer.

As a recog­nised/award­ed In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day (No­vem­ber 19) and men’s health ad­vo­cate (a Mo sis­ter), I am al­ways ex­cit­ed to raise my voice in sup­port of fa­thers, broth­ers and sons, to ac­tive­ly sup­port the men in my com­mu­ni­ty and do so in the name of my son and grand­son, Jo­van and Ken­zo Rav­el­lo.

But on the health and ad­vo­ca­cy cal­en­dar, No­vem­ber de­mands a lot more at­ten­tion. Apart from be­ing Men’s Health Aware­ness Month, it recog­nis­es Di­a­betes Month and World Di­a­betes Day and is list­ed as both Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer and Lung Can­cer Aware­ness Month.

Di­a­betes Aware­ness Month and World Di­a­betes Day (No­vem­ber 14) fo­cus on is­sues such as blood sug­ar and blood pres­sure screen­ing, di­a­betes pre­ven­tion, and ear­ly de­tec­tion. This year’s theme is “Ear­ly ac­tion on di­a­betes”, fo­cus­ing on ear­ly di­ag­no­sis, risk re­duc­tion, and faster ac­cess to care.

In T&T, there is a high preva­lence of di­a­betes mel­li­tus (12.4 per cent). Over 150,000 live with the con­di­tion (di­a­bete­sat­las.org/da­ta-by-lo­ca­tion/coun­try/trinidad-and-to­ba­go).

World Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer Day has been ob­served on No­vem­ber 19 since 2015, es­tab­lished by the World Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer Coali­tion (WPCC), a glob­al net­work of pa­tient ad­vo­ca­cy groups.

While Lung Can­cer Aware­ness Month is No­vem­ber, World Lung Can­cer Day, es­tab­lished in 2012 by the Fo­rum of In­ter­na­tion­al Res­pi­ra­to­ry So­ci­eties (FIRS) and oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tors, is held an­nu­al­ly on Au­gust 1 (firsnet.org/event/world-lung-can­cer-day).

“Lung can­cer is the most com­mon can­cer type and the most com­mon cause of can­cer death world­wide,” ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent es­ti­mates of the glob­al can­cer bur­den by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s (WHO) In­ter­na­tion­al Agency for Re­search on Can­cer (IARC).

“An es­ti­mat­ed 2.6 mil­lion peo­ple were di­ag­nosed with lung can­cer, and about 1.9 mil­lion peo­ple died of lung can­cer in 2024,” says the WHO. “More than one in eight of all can­cer di­ag­noses and al­most one in five of all can­cer deaths were caused by lung can­cer in that year” (iarc.who.int).

Chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease (COPD) Day is No­vem­ber 18, as ad­vo­cates cel­e­brate “the pow­er of or­ange as a sym­bol of lung health, ear­ly di­ag­no­sis, re­search, and treat­ment ac­cess.” COPD is in­cur­able (cur­rent­ly), and the foun­da­tion page says COPD re­mains a lead­ing cause of death world­wide, rank­ing as the third lead­ing cause of death glob­al­ly in 2023 (copdfoun­da­tion.org).

Na­tion­al Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Month is No­vem­ber in the Unit­ed States and some oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions. T&T and many oth­er coun­tries mark World Alzheimer’s Month in Sep­tem­ber with Sep­tem­ber 21st be­ing the ad­vo­ca­cy day.

Then on No­vem­ber 25, the world marks the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women, which is the start of the 16 Days of Ac­tivism that run un­til De­cem­ber 10, World Hu­man Rights Day.

“Vi­o­lence against women and girls re­mains one of the most preva­lent and per­va­sive hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in the world,” says un.org.

“Glob­al­ly, al­most one in three women have been sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal and/or sex­u­al in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence, non-part­ner sex­u­al vi­o­lence, or both at least once in their life (and) one woman or girl is killed every ten min­utes by their in­ti­mate part­ner or fam­i­ly (un.org).

This year’s theme is “En­sure jus­tice, pro­tect sur­vivors, end im­puni­ty,” push­ing for “stronger le­gal frame­works, sur­vivor-cen­tred sup­port ser­vices, ac­count­abil­i­ty for per­pe­tra­tors, and the erad­i­ca­tion of harm­ful so­cial norms,” says un.org.

There is some­thing and some­one we all can sup­port this No­vem­ber. And if these caus­es do not ap­peal to us, then we each can par­tic­i­pate in Na­tion­al Grat­i­tude Month (of­fi­cial US ob­ser­vance). Every­one has some­thing for which they can be grate­ful, and grat­i­tude has amaz­ing pow­ers which can shift us from fo­cus­ing on the neg­a­tive to ap­pre­ci­at­ing what is pos­i­tive in our lives.

Write a thank-you note to some­one or mes­sage them some ap­pre­ci­a­tion. For me, dai­ly jour­nalling, writ­ing three things for which I am grate­ful, makes a world of dif­fer­ence to my ap­proach to my day. Try it!

To­day, I have bor­rowed the 2026 theme for the Pan­cre­at­ic Can­cer Aware­ness Month, ‘All to­geth­er we can’, for the head­line be­cause I have seen the pow­er of ad­vo­ca­cy in my life and its im­pact on oth­ers and on is­sues of ma­jor na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern.

Many of the health, eco­nom­ic, and so­cial changes we en­joy in the world to­day hap­pened be­cause of or­di­nary cit­i­zens de­cid­ing to act. What will you do?

On the lighter side, to­day, No­vem­ber 3, is Na­tion­al Sand­wich Day. Do with that what you will!

Foot­note:

In­ter­na­tion­al days and weeks are oc­ca­sions to ed­u­cate the pub­lic on is­sues of con­cern, to mo­bilise po­lit­i­cal will and re­sources to ad­dress glob­al prob­lems, and to cel­e­brate and re­in­force achieve­ments of hu­man­i­ty. The ex­is­tence of in­ter­na­tion­al days pre­dates the es­tab­lish­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tions, but the UN has em­braced them as a pow­er­ful ad­vo­ca­cy tool. (un.org)