Youth For Blood

16 November 2014 Year 1, Issue 6

YFB Newsletter Festivals and Blood Scarcity With the beginning of festive season, a state of scarcity of blood gets formed in the society every year. Festivals like Dashain, Tihar, Chhath, Eid, etc creates an environment of happiness, enjoyment among the families of society. Every individual and community has their own way of celebration. These festivals refresh people from their daily life. People, too, get in festive mood and celebrate leaving behind their sorrows, works, etc. People visit their elders and relatives, receive and offer blessings, share greeting among friends. The situation at the blood bank during these festivals is very agonizing due to inadequate blood. During festivals, people drink alcoholic beverages heavily and drive vehicle causing the increment of road accidents. Similarly, to celebrate with their dear one’s, people travel to their home town and other places during this season, ultimately this affect the number of regular blood donors. Blood donation drives, too, are not organized on regular intervals during this period. All these create a state of scarcity of blood, which ultimately affect several lives. Besides, many regular blood donors drink alcohol which makes them unfit to donate blood. It also gets difficult to convince the blood donors to donate blood as they are having a quality time with their family. Blood banks too seem to be careless regarding this issue. The works of blood banks seems to be unsatisfied. They don't encourage and advocate other organizations to carryout blood donation camps in time. In these circumstances, they contact other branches to assist the need of blood. Blood donation camps are organized before the beginning of these festivals so that the shortage of blood doesn’t occur. But all these effort still doesn’t seem enough to remove the dearth of blood from the society. Let’s hope the scenario gets changed in the upcoming days! Jwala Dahal Editor, YFB Newsletter

INSIDE THIS ISSUE The eNGO Challenge Award Marathon Signature Campaign CAC Started at Jhapa Volunteer leadership training Talak jung VS Tulke MOMENTS

EDITORIAL TEAM Jwala Dahal—Editor Shreyans Luniya—Biratnagar Prabin Agrahari —Duhabi Sushmita Rajbanshi - Jhapa Writer—Ankit Das And all YFB Team

The eNGO Challenge Award 2014 “It is a big achievement and a milestone for everyone who is or has been a part of YFB. This award had motivated and encouraged us to work with more determination.”- Saroj Karki

Youth For Blood has won 'The 3rd eNGO Challenge South Asia Award 2014' in the category of 'Best Practices of Social Media'. Public Interest Registry (PIR) and Digital Empowerment Foundation, India (DEF) jointly in co-ordination with other organizations have been organizing this award since 2011 to promote and encourage best ICT practices by NGOs for community development. The event was held on 5th November, 2014 at India Habitat Center, New Delhi. More than 400 NGO's from different background from South Asia participated in the event. Youth For Blood was the only Nepali organization to be among the finalist and to win. Saroj Karki, Founder and Past-President of YFB and Ankit Das, Volunteer Co-coordinator of YFB (Biratnagar) represented YFB in the award ceremony and received the award too. Along with the award, a lump sum cheque of INR. 50,000; a mini IPAD and certificates. "It was a tough task to represent YFB at such a grand level. Besides the achievement, I got lots to experience. Congratulations to all and thank you YFB for this opportunity" said Ankit Das. Similarly, Saroj Karki added "It is a big achievement and a milestone for everyone who is or has been a part of YFB. This award had motivated and encouraged us to work with more determination. Thank you everyone!" 2

Community Awareness On 11th of Ashwin 2071, volunteers from YFB (Biratnagar) educated the residents of Biratnagar-15, regarding different aspects of blood donation. “Janapath Library” since its establishment at biratnagar-15 has been organizing an event to exchange wishes and blessings of Dashain among the neighbors. “We believe this type of programs helps to bind the society morally and emotionally”- said Nirmal Tamang, a resident of biratngar-15. The volunteers of YFB Biratnagar distributed the pamphlets and collected the blood donors list. YFB has been organizing community awareness program to educate the residents of different communities regarding the impacts of blood donation in the society. “It was very interesting to watch people, being so keen to know about blood donation. We shared information about blood donation and tried to remove their misconceptions regarding this issue”- added Sabin Dahal, President of YFB.

Signature and Blood Awareness Campaign

On 12th of Karthik, 2071 the occasion of Chhath, YFB (Duhabi) had organized "Signature and Blood Awareness Campaign" near the bank of Budhi River to make people known about blood donation and YFB and also to collect blood donor data list. Dipesh Shrestha, coordinator of this campaign said "We were successful in our campaign. More than 200 people registered themselves to donate blood. Similarly, 250 signatures were collected supporting our campaign and we were able to reach more than 500 people. It was great to watch people being interested to lend their time to us. Hope this will help us in fulfilling our real goal."

Participation in Marathon Event Volunteers from YFB (Duhabi) made their participation in the Marathon organized by Area Police Duhabi. The Marathon was held on 6th Ashoj 2071 the occasion of Police Day. YFBians Rikesh Mishra, Pankaj Dutta, Bikash Sawarnakar, Lalit Jha, Rajiv Bhujel and San-

jay Malik participated in the 6 km Marathon. "People are suffering from several health problems these days due to lack of proper exercise and hectic schedule. So it's good for our body to participate in such events and continue in day-to-day life." said Pankaj Dutta, a participant from YFB. 3

Interaction Program With Talak Jung vs Tulke

On 19th Karthik 2071, an interaction program with team of "TALAK JUNG VS TULKE" movie was held at the premises of YFB Damak's office. The artists' team had a sharing session with the volunteers of YFB. Artists like Dayahang Rai, Susank Mainali, Rabindra Singh Baniya, Khagendra Lamichanne and Director Nischal Basnet shared their experiences and various other suggestions that are needed and helpful in film and acting sector. The team too donated around 100 books for the library.

Collaboration With Nepal Jaycees On the occasion of Nepal Jaycees golden jubilee, Youth For Blood and Nepal Jaycees had jointly organized "Mega Blood Donation Program" on 12th November 2014 in Kathmandu. An active volunteer of YFB Kathmandu, Suraj Subedi said "On this occasion, we were able to collect 59 pints of blood. These types of blood donation camps must be conducted on regular interval so that society remains free from blood scarcity."

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College Awareness Campaign Youth For Blood has initiated the College Awareness Campaign at Damak. Starting from 14th of Karthik 2071 at Damak Model College, the caravan of CAC team has reached to Jhapa College, Himalayan H.S. School, Global Educational Academy and Aastha College of Damak. Coming across all these college, we have educated around 4000 students of +2 and Bachelor level. Students deem to be interested to donate blood and this is our achievement. We will take this campaign to other colleges too” added Suman Luitel, Coordinator of College Awareness Campaign.

Volunteer Leadership Training On 30th of Mangsir 2071 YFB (Jhapa) in coordination with "Damak Shahitik Manch" had organized Volunteer Leadership Training (VLT). The training was sponsored by Divine Hub Educational Institute. YFB has been organizing such trainings on every 3 months to train our volunteers and other youths from different background. The Leadership Training was of 3 days; 2 days of indoor training and 1 day of outdoor training. The training consisted of 105 participants from vivid background. On the first two days of the training, Nabin Prachin, Beshraj Neupane, Damber Nepali and Saroj Karki took sessions to train and motivate the participants regarding the skills needed to be a successful leader. Susmita Rajbansi was the coordinator of the indoor session of VLT. Similarly, on the third day of VLT, participants were taken for outdoor training session to Satashidham on hiking. "This outdoor session was conducted to teach the participants about social volunteering. There were 150 participants and we collected the waste that were on our way and disposed it later." said Gaurav Rai, coordinator of the outdoor session of VLT.

Volunteers Join Youth For Blood Four students enrolled in BSW course at St. Xavier's College, Kathmandu have joined YFB Kathmandu as interns on 15th of Karthik 2071. The interns will involve themselves in several events of YFB and submit their final reports to their respective college. Niranjan Poudel, President of YFB Kathmandu said "Many such students have joined us as interns in our campaign. This is the part of their field report. And we feel happy to see these guys being a part of us."

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Establishment Of Youth For Blood

Youth For Blood has established its new chapter at Lalitpur. With this, YFB has extended its network in 13 different places of Nepal. YFB Kathmandu will provide necessary supervision and help to YFB Lalitpur for first 6 month of trial period. Announcing its official number '9860708673' on 15th Karthik 2071, the initiators of that branch expressed their gratitude towards Youth For Blood and promised to lead the spirit forward.

Collaboration With Nepal Jaycees On the occasion of Nepal Jaycees golden jubilee, Youth For Blood and Nepal Jaycees had jointly organized "Mega Blood Donation Program" on 12th November 2014 in Kathmandu. An active volunteer of YFB Kathmandu, Suraj Subedi said "On this occasion, we were able to collect 59 pints of blood. These types of blood donation camps must be conducted on regular interval so that society remains free from blood scarcity." 6

SPECIAL MOMENTS

Ankit Das and Saroj Karki, representatives of YFB at eNGO Challenge, receiving the award.

Group Photo of participants after the outdoor session of VLT at Damak. 7

SPECIAL MOMENTS

A group photo after CAC at Damak

A person during the signature campaign organized by YFB Duhabi 8

SPECIAL MOMENTS YOUTH FOR BLOOD

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Arun Rathi donating Rs.72000 as room rent for YFB Biratnagar office

Youth For Blood Biratnagar Kathmandu Jhapa Sunsari Chitwan Lumbini Butwal 977 021 472557 [email protected]

A group photo of YFB Damak volunteers after watching movie www.youthforblood.org

SHARE BLOOD SHARE LIFE 9