Last week, we had two camps in Raichur; One on 18th in "Govt Polytechnic college" and another on 19th in "LVD College". We had visited Raichur in February as a part of our "Rakta Kranti Karnataka" Program expansion and a team red training was done in LVD college, where 5 colleges participated in training program.
The above 2 colleges were the first one to go for conducting drives and thus the drives were scheduled in 3rd week of March.
After initial Team Red training, our "Base Team", tried to keep in touch over phone with the "Team Red" Volunteers from both colleges to help them in conducting awareness in their college. There were some initial hiccups since both the college students were doing such kind of activity for the first time in their college and the awareness didn't exactly went as per our expectations in the colleges.
On the day of the drive, one of Sankalp Volunteers, went to Raichur. On the first day of the drive, we found that a lot of things needed to be kept in place for the drive to start. The room needed a cleaning and there were no sufficient tables for the donation to take place. With the help of college teachers and students, we tried to utilize the available infrastructure to be able to do the drive. Blood bank arrived nearly 2 hours late, which created a lot of unrest among students and college staff. Finally, blood bank arrived just on time, for the small introductory function, which the college has decided to do before and the addressing of students was done. Principal, explained the importance of blood donation and how it stands very high in regard to all other donations. Blood bank officer, also explained why blood donation is necessary and how it helps you in improving your health and reducing chances for heart strokes. Our volunteer asked donors to come up with their doubts and fears which stops them from doing a camp and then we started ahead with the camp.
After some time, volunteers visited every class on the day of the drive, requesting and motivating donors to come forward for the donation. The blood banks provided good refreshments and had experienced technicians, however had scope for improvements in terms of doing Hb Test, wearing gloves etc etc.
In total, 35 units were collected, which were way above the expectations, considering the fact that it was first drive in college with only 120 eligible donors and very minimal prior publicity. The volunteers from college did a fantastic job on the day of drive to do registration, taking every donor after donation to separate benches and providing them post donation care instructions.
After, the camp, our volunteer went to LVD college and checked all the arrangements for next days camp. College had got two big rooms ready for the drive with sufficient lighting and ventilation. They mentioned that they will be making water arrangement and even refreshments arrangements for donors and staff after donation.
Next day, Starting with a usual college function, the camp started at 11 am and both the blood banks started doing drives in their respective areas. There was a huge rush and initially it was difficult to manage crowd. After some time, volunteers took charge of their respective areas and things become more manageable. Considering the huge crowd of donors and the fact that one of the blood banks was not equipped to take more donations, we dropped the idea of doing further awareness by visiting classes.
In total, 62 units were collected, with one blood bank collecting 15 and another 47. College arranged for small refreshments after the camp for the blood bank staff and Sankalp volunteers. Two of the volunteers did a very good job of handling donors, at post donation and at the registration area.
With these two camps as a start in Raichur, we are hopeful that Raichur will see more camps in coming future and the voluntary donation percentage will increase in Raichur.
Rakta Kranti Companies:
Sankalp organized three blood donation drives in the last month. The first of the drive was organized at ARM,the second at National instruments and the last at ITPB Business park.
NI:
This was the 2nd drive that Sankalp organized at NI and we had 24 units being collected with Rashtrottana as the blood bank.
ARM:
Sankalp organized its third blood donation drive at Arm. We had several companies other than ARM from Salarpuria Touchstone campus participating in the drive like ARM , Quest, Avaya Global , Mformation, Skelta Mentor Graphics. The drive was organized on 23rd and 24th of February.We had Nimhans Blood bank participating on the 1st day with Rashtrottana and Indira Gandhi Institute on 2nd day. We had over 200 donors participating in the drive with 193 of them donating blood. The team red volunteers from company carried out an excellent awareness programme before the drive which was the driving force behind the success of the drive.
ITPB:
Sankalp organized its 8th blood donation drive at ITPB Campus in association with Ascendas and Applied Materials. This time we had posters (sponsored by Applied Materials) sent to over 150 companies within the campus which resulted in more employees being aware of the blood donation drive.
Rashtrottana,St John’s and Indira Gandhi were the three blood banks participating in the drive and we had over 300 donors participating with 287 eligible donors who donated.