Aussie esports organisation ORDER has teamed with preventative mental health charity The Man Cave to develop programs to aid positive mental health and wellbeing for esports players in Australia and beyond. The aim is to reach young players and de-stigmatise challenges with personal wellbeing, so that everyone knows they’re not alone.
The Man Cave has worked with over 20,000 young men, teaching valuable life lessons in workshops and programs designed to encourage ‘positive masculinity’, and the essential social and emotional skills needed to deal with the challenges men often face.
Gendered norms mean that men are typically expected to be less emotional, leading many to closet feelings that need to be dealt with in the open. The Man Cave and ORDER hope to reduce the stigma around these conversations, and help engage young esports players – and gaming fans – in a much-needed dialogue.
‘There’s no time like the present to start the conversation about mental and physical wellbeing and we have been looking for ways to enrich our teams and our organisation as a whole,’ Marc Edwards, CEO of ORDER said of the initiative.
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‘We are the first professional esports team in Australia to implement a program that will not only look at how our teams best work together – high performance culture – but individual mental wellbeing, including nutrition and fitness, financial education and involving parents so they fully understand the players’ career paths and how best to support their child.’
In future, the program will be extended to the whole ORDER organisation, including its many content creators and trainers – and it’s likely the programs and workshops created will spread further as the initiative grows.
By working together, with direct consultation between ORDER and The Man Cave, there’s hope the programs developed will get to the heart of challenges facing esports players, and enable them to have healthier, more supported lives even as the pressures of competition mount.
‘We work with thousands of young men every year, and we know how important gaming and online communities are for them – they are an inseparable part of their lives,’ Al Green, Head of Community at The Man Cave said.
The teams will partner together for a special eight-hour community-building stream on Saturday, 12 February at 1 pm AEDT on Twitch to discuss health role models, how ORDER works, and what players can do to lead healthier lives. It’ll be an important show for game players of all backgrounds.
