Cyclists in Blood Donor Day shirts setting off on an awareness ride

Donate Red · Donor On Call

A small gift of blood means a big thing to a child

Our GPS-based app matches people in need with healthy donors nearby. Our camps support children who need regular transfusions, transplants and surgery.

Our goal

Blood for children from all over India

The need-based camps we started at the Covid peak in 2020 collect 25 to 100 units of blood each. They help the 600 or so children attached to the PGI of Child Health in Noida, who need regular transfusions, transplants and surgery.

Through this institute we help children who come from all over India and neighbouring countries, and we can help a donor's own family if the need arises.

Healthy and ready to help?

All healthy blood donors willing to help children coming here from across India and neighbouring countries can register in a couple of minutes.

Recognition

Applauded by the WHO

The World Health Organization applauded the Donor On Call app on World Blood Donor Day. ICMR and Cornell University had praised it earlier.

We also look after our donors' own health through time in nature, cycling, yoga and running. Safe blood is essential, so donors are screened for permanent conditions and for temporary ones, such as antibiotics, dengue or jaundice, that require a waiting period. Donors can keep a record of their donations and hemoglobin levels in the app. The beta launched around March 2017, built on what we had learned since 2014.

How it began

Since Diwali 2014

At Diwali 2014 we arranged six donors with rare blood groups for children undergoing bone marrow transplants. Among the first to come forward, without hesitation, was Mrs Aartee Antal. The Kurdish child her donation supported was later discharged, and the video below captures a lovely meeting between the two of them and the child's mother. Our donors have since supported children and patients from Kenya, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Fiji and Nepal, as well as India.

Inspired by this work, children of our donors who are too young to give blood formed a band. They perform for young patients and staff at a paediatric super-speciality hospital that serves marginalized communities, and have even brought blood cancer survivors we supported into their singing. The oncologist has found this music therapy helpful for recovery.

In July 2018 we presented the initiative at the health section of a global summit in Silicon Valley, California, and visited Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park to discuss blood donation and wastage in India.