The Odisha-based Association of Voluntary Blood Donors (AVBD) has decided to take up a massive ‘education programme’ for higher secondary students in Ganjam district in 2016-17.
Although students of higher secondary classes are below the age of 18 years and not eligible to donate blood, we are targeting them as they will be able to do so soon, added the AVBD activists.
“Usually, adults have much misunderstanding and stigma in their minds regarding blood donation. So, we have decided to end these mental blockades in the minds of youngsters before they reach the age to donate blood,” said former AVBD president V. Santosh Kumar.
Under this year-long project, the AVBD plans to hold awareness camps for higher secondary students in educational institutes in Berhampur as well as 22 blocks of Ganjam, which is the most populous district in Odisha.
The leaders thus created would be invited to camps organised in their respective areas to have practical knowledge about the process to remove their fears related to blood donation, said J. Suresh, national executive member of Federation of Blood Donors Organisations of India . The AVBD hopes this project would increase number of voluntary donors in next few years.
The AVBD has taken up this new project after completion of ‘one organiser one camp’ project last year.
