Walking to raise awareness on blood donation

PNS|Vijayawada

A Delhi-based social worker walking 21,000 km for blood awareness reached Vijayawada on Sunday completing 9,700 km and heading towards Visakhapatnam through coastal districts. He said that he started his 21,000 km walk for blood awareness in India from Thiruvananthapuram on 28th Dec 2021. He further said this walk is going to be the “longest blood awareness campaign ever by an individual in the world” which will run for more than 2 years. He stated that the mission for the walk is to spread awareness about blood donation among people so that “Nobody should die waiting for blood in India after 31st December 2025”.

Kiran Verma explained that he started Simply Blood when his blood was sold to a poor woman (from Raipur, Chhattisgarh) in Delhi forced into prostitution to pay medical bills for her husband’s treatment. He said that on December 26, 2016, he got a call from a person who told him that there is a poor family from Raipur; Chhattisgarh who needs blood. Kiran went to the hospital to donate blood to that family. After donating blood, he went to meet the family and got to know that the person who called Kiran took Rs 1,500 for the blood, he donated.

Kiran Verma said that it was hard to digest for him and on the same day he left his job and took this as his goal that “nobody should die because of lack of blood by 2025 in India”. He stated that he received a very good response from Andhra people in Kurnool, Nandyal, Anantapur, Sri Sathya Sai, Rayachoti, Kadapa, Tirupati, Nellore, Prakasam, Bapatla, Guntur and NTR districts covering more than 9,700 km. He said that Simply Blood is the world’s first virtual blood donation platform, connecting blood donors and seekers real-time.