The world celebrates the World Blood Donor day on 14th June annually. The day is aimed at educating people of safe blood transfusion, to thank frequent blood donors and also encourage blood donation culture among people. The World Blood Donor Day is supported by four agencies across the globe namely: Red Cross, World Health Organization, World crescent societies and international federation of Red Cross.
Every year a different theme is used for this day and this year’s theme is ‘Thank you for saving my life’. Blood donation helps in saving people’s life who are suffering from various chronic conditions and therefore the theme aims at thanking the blood donors for the great job they accomplish. We have a number of potential blood donors worldwide, but due to the fear and lack of information on why they should donate blood they tend to shy off. It is therefore important that such potential donors are tapped and added to the existing pull of donors as we also aim to retain the existing donors. This article therefore looks at the various aspects of the donor day.
What is the purpose of World Blood Donor Day?
The day serves various purposes that aim at promoting the attitude of blood donation. This includes: thanking blood donors for the great part they take in saving a life, creating awareness to the world population about the need to be a regular blood donor and also creation awareness by educating the world population on the importance of human life and saving a life by donating blood. Apart from that, the day also promotes major principles used in blood donation such as achievement of self-efficiency, protection of the donor and recipient’s health, non-commercialization of human by educating people on the need to donate blood without being paid or expecting any remuneration in return, saving lives of children and pregnant mothers who loose excess blood at birth and saving lives of patients during surgical procedures, anemic patients, cancer patients and many more diseases that leads to blood loss.
Activities carried out during the World Blood Donor Day
Have you asked yourself the question what can be done on this day? Well, several activities can be done to encourage and input the culture of blood donation. Some of the various activities include:
Holding mobile blood donation clinics to encourage more people to donate blood, Organizing sports events where participants are encouraged to donate blood to save lives of patients who are in urgent need of blood, Organizing communal based concerts to educate community members about the benefits of blood donation, Teaching the community members on the need to follow healthy diet plan so that they can prepare to donate blood and save a life. Previous beneficiaries of blood donation are invited during this day to give testimonials on how it saved their lives as a way to motivate the members of a community to donate blood. This day also acts a Worldwide campaign encouraging blood donation, and therefore it helps save a lot of lives across the globe.
What is the message shared on the World Blood Donor Day?
The message shared on this day is mainly the role blood donation plays in saving lives of patients, pregnant women and accidents women who urgently need a blood transfusion. Blood donors are thanked on this day, therefore encouraging them to continue with the culture of blood donating and also help to encourage the qualified donor who are yet to start donating blood to do so. By encouraging patients who recovered as a result of blood transfusion and those who are dependent on blood transfusion to come out this day, it helps to educate the public the importance of blood donation. People get to know that there are actually people out there who need blood and hence the need to donate.
Conclusion:
As a blood donor, we need to understand that this day is specifically set out to encourage people to donate blood without expectation of remuneration. Therefore, several activities carried out on this day all aims at achieving this goal, where we are educated on blood donation through concerts, drama, games and mobile clinics. In the event that you find it difficult being a donor, then through such forums you will be much encouraged to donate blood and contribute to the world blood bank.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Blood_Donor_Day
https://www.glozine.com/lifestyle/health
