21,000-km walk for blood donation awareness
The Hindu
Kiran Verma started his walk from Thiruvananthapuram on Dec. 28
Kiran Verma, who runs Simply Blood, a virtual blood donation platform, is on a mission to create awareness about the importance of donating blood.
Kiran started his 21,000-km walk across the nation from Thiruvananthapuram on December 28 to create awareness about blood donation so that “nobody should die waiting for blood in India after December 31, 2025”.
In December, 2016 Kiran got a call that a poor family from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, needed blood. After donating blood, he went to meet the family. He realised that the man who called him sold the blood to the family for ₹1,500 and also that the lady, who paid for the blood, got into prostitution to pay the medical bills of her husband. This prompted Kiran to start Simply Blood.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.