A Hero in your Veins – Mexico (IFMSA-Mexico)

Name of the activity: A Hero in your Veins

Country/NMO: Mexico (IFMSA-Mexico)

Program: Organ, Marrow & Tissue Donation

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Campaign

Focus area:

Blood donation

Problem statement:

In Mexico, the percentage of altruistic blood donation is only 2.3%, less than 1,000 donors per year. Because of this IFMSA Mexico (AMMEF A.C) has the need to increase this number through donation campaigns.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The target population is all people over 18 years of age, weighing more than 50 kilograms, not having tattoos or perforations in the last year and other requirements provided by the State Blood Transfusion Centers.

Objectives and indicators of success:

1. Promote altruistic blood donation through pre-event information campaigns.
2. Conduct a survey to find out how often people donate blood and know the person’s lifestyle to make sure their blood is safe. At the end, a data analysis and publication will be carried out.
3. Build a culture of blood donation in Mexican society. This point will be evaluated by comparing the number of people who donated blood in the first and second campaigns.

Methodology:

1. Getting in contact with the local blood donation bank
2. Promoting the blood donation campaign online also physically (TV, radio, infographics, etc)
3. We gather a group of people to promote the importance of blood donation (benefits, myths and realities)
4. The day of the blood donation campaign should be made in collaboration with the local blood.
5. An Autoevaluation about the experience obtained and the impact it made on the population and medical students

Plans for evaluation:

This is the second time an activity of this type has been carried out in IFMSA Mexico (AMMEF A.C). So we will focus on leaving all the data obtained from surveys and the number of transfusions in each of the states comparing with the last campaing made and the next time this national campaign takes place. In this way we will be able to see if we are managing to change the mentality of the Mexicans near the donation of blood.