blahblah :B

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Red Cross Blood Drive cum Roadshow @ Health & You Fair 2008

saturday, 5/7/08

after piano, went straight to Suntec for voluntary work at red cross blooddrive cum roadshow at Health & You Fair 2008. we didn't have anything to showcase except for our YAP booth because blood drive started at 2pm only. but in the morning, many interested blood donors already came forward, eagerly wanting to donate their blood.

this roadshow is to encourage first time blood donors to come forward to try donating blood. regular blood donors who are enthusiastic, are refused and advised to go to the BloodBank@HSA. seeing such responses made me super happy.

many first time blood donors took a while to be convinced, and also to have the courage to come forward. they usually had a lot of questions about blood donation, and they were generally about the same. for example, they might ask, "is it very painful?", "how long will the whole process take?", "what must we bring or do in order to donate?" etc. i would tell them, "yes, it's going to hurt a little, but it's bearable. it would be a lie to tell you it's not painful at all. the whole process takes about 45mins, depending on how quickly you pass all the tests, and the drawing of blood. 45mins duration begins when you start registering. you have to be generally healthy in order to donate." of course there are many other restrictions, like weight limit, age limit, and whether you're on medication, any diseases plaguing you, or whether you're pregnant. people who went UK since 1980, are permanently not eligible to donate blood because of the mad cow disease. there hasn't been a lab test to test for mad cow disease. i met a lot of foreigners coming forward to donate blood. some are regular donors in their countries, and it's their first time here. many uncles and aunties came forward because they havdalways been wanting to donate, but couldn't find the right time, or they stopped donating after NS life. so many of them were second-time donors. but generally, they were still very afraid, and needed a little encouragement. there were a few teenagers who wanted to donate. one girl felt giddy after donating. so her feet were raised. some curious onlookers began questioning me, why she was in that position, why legs must be raised, and we had to convince them that not everyone would feel nauseous or giddy after donating blood.

overall, we somewhat met the target. when blood drive ended at 6pm, we cleared the area, and allowed the youngsters who just joined YDC to demonstrate their dancing skills. they liked shuffling a lot. earlier on, one of them wore the blood buddy mascot and shuffle danced, attracting many people's attention. one m'sian teenager even wanted to PK. he was so interested that he videoed the dancers, and wanted to talk and dance with them. haha. so cute. so we told him that there's a YDC camp opened to regional countries coming this end of year. he left his contacts, and we promised to post or email him the details. this was one strategy we decided to employ to attract more youth donors/members of YDC.

i'm so happy to be in YDC! although i'm not like those enthu blood donors, but i'm happy with volunteering, and making new friends! haha. my mum used to say it's so stupid of me to do such voluntary work because i'm not paid. i'm not sure why, but i like to volunteer for such events.

my mum had resigned to the fact that i liked volunteering for YDC. when i came home, she just sighed and smiled. heehee. she asked me too, what's so good about blood donation, it makes people fat! i went hahahahaha, so many thousand people had thought it's a fact that blood donation makes people fat too. i told her, those people who went to donate were generally thin, and making ppl fat was just a common myth. red blood cells die within 100 days, and whether you give your blood out or not, it's still going to die in your body. if you donate blood, you give the matured blood out, your bone marrow produces new young blood! so every 3 months, you make your bone marrow produce new young blood cells regularly- so healthy!

it's a blessing to donate blood. not everyone can dontae blood. if you're able to pass all the tests and checks by doctor, it means you're healthy.

isn't that great?! :)

we are currently lacking of O+ and A+ blood supply.

3:09 AM :) :) :) :)