New Zealand Is Running Out Of Blood - Wellington Girls College tries to help

We are a group of Wellington Girls students who decided to help make a positive difference in the blood donation shortage issue that we have in our country, as part of a school project.

In our year 12 sociology class this year, the four of us came together with shared aspiration to make an impact within this issue.

We became more eager to act on this issue during our research, when we were made aware that less than 4% of all eligible blood donors in our country donate each year. We also found out how difficult it is for New Zealand Blood to reach each of their targets. In order to keep up with demand and continue saving lives, New Zealand blood service needs another 20,000 donors to exceed the 160,000 units of blood donated last year!

They need to collect over 168,000 units of blood each year and about 3,000 each week.

Around 420,000 patients (9% of the population) are treated with blood in New Zealand each year and for each blood donation, up to three lives can be saved! Blood donations do not just save lives, but they also significantly improve the quality of life for many patients, and the need for blood is not being fulfilled to meet the needs of the number of those who rely on it.

In attempt to help change the blood donation shortage in our country, we organised a group of individuals to donate with us at a pop-up blood drive at Custom House Quay in August. “It went really well and we were able to put towards the demand needed for donations that month, in order to impact the issue in the short-term.” In hopes to greater improve the shortage in New Zealand in the long-term, we organised a number of events to raise awareness of the blood donation shortage. We set up a facebook page, regularly posting updates of facts around the issue and notifying individuals when and where there would be pop-up blood drives held. We also shared photos to the campaign #sharingforlife, which was started to raise awareness of the issue. Now we are sharing it through other areas of the media such as through the Dominion post paper, which enables us to help a larger community of individuals to become aware of this growing issue within our country.

It is our hope that through raising awareness of this issue, we can come together as a country and help to make great changes, minimising the size of this issue in our country. People's’ lives and health rely on blood donations, so we urge you to get involved by raising awareness of the issue or more importantly donating blood. It only takes one person to start to make a change, and big things will happen - three lives could be saved by just you! The process can actually be quite simple and only takes half an hour of your time, just one time, or if you chose to become a regular donator, then every 3 months. And did we mention that donors get thanked with a table full of goodies, chocolate biccies and beverages?

Join us today in our act to positively change New Zealand one donation at a time.

For more information on the blood donation shortage or to sign up to donate, visit the NZ blood website https://www.nzblood.co.nz/ Signing up takes all of 5 minutes and you can create your own account which will tell you when you are eligible to donate, your blood type, and how many blood donations you have made. You will also get a text message alert once your blood has been used to help save a life and what it was needed for - which is so awesome!

ends

© Scoop Media