2009 was the year when Sankalp became a full blown state wide organisation. All 3 major workin wings of Sankalp, namely the Emergency Wing, Disha and Rakta Kranti spread their wings. Disha connected the best blood banks across the state to the helpline. Volunteers of the emergeny wing took up blood requests from every nook and corner of the state and learnt about how effectively to handle blood emergencies. Rakta Kranti was split wide open into Rakta Kranti Bangalore and Rakta Kranti Karnataka.
Last academic year the Rakta Kranti Karntaka team visited 9 districts and about 126 colleges to spread the message of voluntary blood donation and encourage colleges to conduct blood donation drives to improve blood availability in blood banks. The modus operandi was simple. Visit the college, convince the management, conduct a full blown training in the college and build a team of volunteers called Team Red and then go on to conduct the blood donation drive. Last academic year, 8 such blood donation drives were held in Davangere, Kolar, Raichur, Hubli, and Mysore where 632 units of blood were donated. Hundreds of students were covered in team Red trainings.
This academic year, since August, volunteers of Sankalp have been working out ways to revisit/discuss some of the cases where a blood donation drive could not be held solely due to a tight academic year. Follow ups with many such colleges over the months of August and September finally yielded positive outcomes. 3 blood donation drives were conducted by the team - 2 in Davangere and 1 in Belgaum.
Blood Donation drive @ SBC and BSC College Davangere
Sankalp India Foundation conducted a joint team red training for SBC and BSC Colleges in Davangere. While SBC was a womens college, BSC was a Boys College. Volunteers were given information handouts and a complete end to end training for handling blood donatioin drives. Blood donation drives had never been held there thus far and Sankalp set the ball rolling there. Finally after a lot of negotiations for a best date, the blood donation drive happened on 5th OCtober 2010 in both colleges. Bapuji Blood was the blood bank at the girls college and SS Hospital blood bank came at the boys college. The volunteers of both college were quite excited about the drive and were ready to help out in all possible ways. At the girls college, there was a decent response with more than 25 girls turning up to donate blood. However many were anemic and had to be turned down. Midway through there was a power shutdown and the last few donations were carried out in the blood bank. The NSS officer there was quite happy with the way things were organised and urged us to conduct more drives there. finally 14 girls donated blood and it was their first!. At the boys college, the resonse was good with close to 45 students turning up and about 41 students donated blood. The blood banks too were happy about things and Sankalp volunteers new that a new success story was being scripted there
Blood Donation drive @ Lingraj College & RL Science College Belgaum
Belgaum is a place where Sankalp had not organised a drive in the last academic year. However, things got off to a start with Lingraj and RL Science college. Again here too a full fledged team red training was held in the early half of the year, and finally the drive was executed on 30th december. sankalp invited KLE Blood Bank to come for the drive. Sankalp volunteers had a detailed discussion with the blood bank officer at KLE and had discussed isues related to donor safety. The blood bank too was happy to follow them. Although they are 2 colleges, they are almost really in the same building. There have been past drives in the college, but they have been mainly due to NSS volunteers donating and not really the others. This drive wa a little different where all students got a chane. Finally 50 students turned up and there were 42 units of blood collected as some were rejected due to medical reasons. Volunteers from Sankalp present at the drive say that 90% were first time donors. The NSS officer of the college is keen on doing another drive in the next semester!. Hoefully there will be lots more.
More to come in the next semester
Although there have been just 3 drives, there have been a lot of discussions happening for more drives. Sadly, there could be a lull again as colleges head into examinations and then holidays. But the sun is rising, the ball has been set rolling, voluntary blood donation in Karnataka is going to pick up and pick up in the Sankalp way :- with 100% focus towards the right blood donation practices and donor safety. Many many students are donating for the first time, and when the first time goes right, they will ove it, they will want to do it again and again. Thats the plan. With 1800+ colleges spread across the state it's time to kick out blood shortage in the state. The Rakta Kranti Karnataka team plans to work harder to get more blood donation drives in many districts. In the next semester starting January 2011, the blood banks are going to get busier with phone calls from Sankalp volunteers inviting them for blood donation drives
When I went to Kedarnath, I missed visiting the Bhairavnath temple. I really didn't knew about the Vaishno devi and Bhairavnath temple are devotional connected. My mom and dad have become old that's why I couldn't take them to see the temple, as my dad was not well. I will go there at least once so that I can take the blessings on behalf of my parents.