KOCHI: We have heard of people losing their lives due to the unavailability of blood. Nowadays although there are many blood banks and regular blood donation camps are being held, every year more than 12,000 people die but hardly anyone of us care about it.
But, Kiran Verma, a 33-year-old from New Delhi, however, believes it to be one's responsibility to donate blood and has set out on a mission to get 1.5 lakh people from across India on a single platform to donate blood. Kiran intends to travel 15,000 kilometres and in the process meet at around 10 people or more at each place and create awareness on the importance of donating blood. He started his journey on January 26, 2018, from Lal Chowk in Srinagar on foot and has now reached Thiruvananthapuram.
What led him to come out with such a mission was the difficulties he witnessed in his life as well as in other people's because of the unavailability of blood. He lost his mother to cancer at the tender age of 7. This brought a major change in his life. He started thinking about doing something as his life's mission. But what actually drove him to go on this mission was another life-changing incident. Kiran says, “I failed my Class XI exams. It was during that time that my teacher was suffering kidney problems and was critical. I thought of donating my blood with the intention of getting marks in my exams. But when his son came and thanked me for saving his life, I was deeply moved. It was from then that I started donating blood on a monthly basis.”
He says that at the beginning he had no clue how much it would help people but as he did it he started realising more about the importance of blood donation. He has donated blood about 40 times till now.
Kiran was working as a marketing head in a private company in Noida in 2016. Later he quit his job and started a foundation called Simply Blood- supposed to be the world's first virtual blood donation platform, with an initiative by Change with One Foundation, to saves lives. Many people came forward and supported this initiative.
Now Kiran is covering 15,000 kilometers to help people so that nobody ever faces the problem of unavailability of blood. He says, “Although I used to donate blood on a monthly basis, I found that it was not enough. So I decided to do a nationwide campaign by including people from other states in my mission. While doing this, I thought of meeting new people as well as creating awareness about blood donation.”
Till now he has travelled more than 6,000 kilometres where he covered about 2,800 kilometres on foot and about 3,400 kilometres using different modes of transportation. He chose to walk in this campaign as he says, “ I thought that if I travel continuously using some transportation, my mission to meet people and spread the message of blood donation won't become that fruitful. So, I believe this 15,000 kilometres walk will save atleast 1.5 lakh people.” He wishes to cover 24 Indian states and also Nepal and Bhutan.