Delhi youth embarks on 21,000-km walk to spread awareness on blood donation

The inspiration for my walk came from seeing the acute shortage of plasma at blood banks across the country during the second wave of COVID-19, says Kiran Verma

Kiran Verma, a resident of Delhi, is on a 21,000-km walk from Thiruvanthapuram to spread the message of blood donation. His mission is to see that no one dies for want of blood anywhere in India. He reached Visakhapatnam on Thursday, covering a distance of 10,300 km so far.

His first brush with blood donation was when he was in junior college, at the age of 18, in 2003. “I was poor in studies and our teacher was on dialysis and required blood. I thought that if I donated blood, he might pass me in the examination. The gratitude in his son’s eyes touched me when he said ‘thank you’ after I donated blood,” Mr. Verma said.

“In 2016, I came to know through a WhatsApp group that a poor man from Raipur needed blood. I donated blood, but later when I met the family members, I learnt that the mediator had sold the blood for ₹1,500 to the poor family.”

Mr. Verma later realised that the person who had contacted him was a tout. He also realised the need to ensure that no one dies for want of blood, and to ensure that the blood donated by volunteers goes to the needy, free of cost.

In January 2017, he launched ‘Simply Blood’, a virtual blood donation platform.

“We have collected 40,000 units of blood through our virtual platform so far. The platform eliminates middlemen as any donor living close to the patient, who requires blood, can donate. If there are multiple requests for blood from the same number, it would be blocked,” he says.

The inspiration for his walk came from seeing the acute shortage of plasma at blood banks across the country during the second wave of COVID-19. “The casual attitude of the public towards blood donation, and the same persons running around blood banks when their near and dear ones were hospitalised, prompted me to embark on this endeavour,” he says.