Welcome to BloodConnect’s very first blog post!
BloodConnect is an entirely student run NGO that works in the field of voluntary blood donation. Started by a group of motivated individuals in 2010 in IIT Delhi, we have now expanded to 15 cities in India, including Bangalore, Agra, Chennai, and Kolkata.
Now that the customary introduction is out of the way, we are not going to pretend that we are a bunch of world changing, all knowing, super idealistic individuals who know everything about blood shortage. Because let’s be honest here, we do not. What we do know though, and this I can say with absolute conviction, is that the problem exists, and that it affects enough people for us to recognize a need to work towards eradicating it. In our six years we have made a difference, but we are still a long way from solving the problem in its entirety but we are closer than we were yesterday, and that is what keeps us going.
Statistics say that in India, there is a need for 12 million units (1 unit = approx. 350 ml) of blood annually, out of which only 9 million is satisfied. That may seem like not-such-a-bad situation to some of you, but if I told you that if only 2% more people donated blood, we could overcome this shortage, then you would agree that hell, there are probably, really, no mountains to be moved- and this challenge we can work on!
This fact, my dear friends, is what drives us.
Now, imagine this: The latest edition of your favourite game (say, FIFA ’ 16) is finally here. You, the FIFA addict, scramble to download it. You are almost quite there. 95%… 96 %… 97% … 98%… Download failed. What will you do? Restart again, and wait for it to download. You patiently wait for that two percent to download. You check for the internet connection, see if all the wires are up and good, and keep on trying.
This is the closest I can come with an example that a lot of you might be able to relate with. The target of eliminating blood shortage seems so achievable, that we keep on pushing ourselves for it to happen and going by our conviction, it will, certainly.
What we were surprised to find out though, when we started, was that a lot of college students were quite eager to come forward to donate blood. And then there were others, the skeptical ones. The latter hold misconceptions and have some inherent reluctance which make them averse to blood donation. And yet again, there are others, who think that there are already enough people out there who donate blood- so their contribution is not needed.
Herein lies our main challenge – the biggest misconception that we have been trying to get rid of,to make people understand that they matter. All of us matter. It’s in the little things we do, that make this world a better place.
In our subsequent posts, we will go about telling you how exactly we achieve the task of trying to increase voluntary blood donations in the country. Also, we will introduce you to our dynamic team, the people who make it all happen.
Keep up guys, there are indispensable life lessons we have for you.
Stay tuned, next post comes live on April 15!
BloodConnect 