While voluntary blood donation is common, it is always difficult to find a donor in your locality when someone is in dire need of blood. To create awareness about voluntary blood donation and also make available an area-specific list of donors, a group of Hyderabad-based IT professionals, in coordination with like-minded people from across the country, have started Friends2Support (F2S), a database of voluntary blood donors that can be accessed on its website, >www.friends2support.org
Finding locations
Jayakrishna M., an IT professional from Bangalore, who is part of this motivated group, said the website was started to help people find donors in their own locations in times of need.
“The motto of F2S is to make the best use of contemporary technologies in delivering a promising web portal, which brings together all the blood donors in India, thereby fulfilling every blood request in the country. This is the brainchild of a Hyderabad-based IT professional Shareef S.K.,” he said. “What began with only 200 donors, now has over one lakh, making it the largest blood donors’ database in the country. However, not many from Karnataka are aware of it.”
SMS to donors
The website has a free SMS facility to blood donors. Registered users will get a message on their phones along with their user name and password when they register as donors or when they forget their password. They will also get a “thank you” SMS after they donate blood.
With an average of 200 people donating blood every day through this website across the country, the website also conceals the name of the donor for 90 days from the last donation so as to avoid calls. “On the 91st day, his or her name will be automatically visible in the search results,” Mr. Jayakrishna explained.
All donors will get a reminder SMS when they complete three months after their last blood donation. People can use the website to request for a blood donor form or place a request for blood. Call +919900421343.
