Blood Donor Volunteer Club Wins All-Russian Competition

On November 27, the IV Conference on the Development of Donor Culture and the final events of the All-Russian campaign "Donor Code. Defenders of the Fatherland" were held in Moscow.

The key event of the Conference on the Development of Donor Culture was the plenary session "Corporate Donorship: Problems and Opportunities." Representatives of private businesses, state enterprises, and non-profit organizations shared ideas on developing a donor culture within work and student communities, talked about new approaches, conducted research, and successful practices. They reached a consensus: at the organizational level, donation should become a corporate norm so that donors feel the support of their leaders.

The Chairman of the Russian Red Cross, Pavel Savchuk, awarded the winners of the IV All-Russian competition "Leader of Corporate Donorship," which included the volunteer donor club of Samara University. The application "Samara University Donor Day" in the nomination "Best Corporate Donor Day" from the student association was prepared by the club chairman, a student of the Faculty of Sociology, Nikita Kuznetsov. He represented the association and the university at the conference and received the award from the hands of the Chairman of the Russian Red Cross, Pavel Savchuk.

"At the plenary session of the Russian Red Cross conference, I heard many important things. For example, the story of a woman who underwent a bone marrow transplant. She said she couldn't find a donor in the Russian registry, while 331 suitable matches were found in the German registry. And all because there are 500 thousand potential donors in the Russian federal bone marrow donor registry, while there are 10 million in the German one," Nikita noted.

The event organizers supported the participants informationally by gifting a print run of Russia's first educational comic book about bone marrow donation, "In Your Hands," created by the "Bone Marrow Donor Development Center" Foundation with the support of the Presidential Grants Foundation. Now the student association will be able to use the comic as a means to explain the safety of bone marrow donation and the procedure for joining the federal registry to young people.

On November 27, the Conference "Donorship Management: Lessons from the Past – the Basis for Moving into the Future" was held at the Victory Museum in Moscow — the final event of the All-Russian campaign "Donor Code. Defenders of the Fatherland." This event, uniting donation traditions and the great legacy of Victory, became significant because the traditions of blood donation at the university were formed back in the difficult war years.

At the meeting of Section 2 of the Conference — "Workshop in the Frame: Scenarios for Success" — the experience of implementing the Samara University project "Victory is in Our Blood" was presented to the participants of the "Blood Donation. Connection of Generations" best practices competition by the Chairman of the Blood Donor Volunteer Club, N. Kuznetsov.

The Hall of Commanders of the legendary Victory Museum gathered over 500 people from different regions of the country for the solemn award ceremony for the winners and laureates of the "Blood Donation. Connection of Generations" competition of the All-Russian campaign "Donor Code. Defenders of the Fatherland."

Samara University became the winner of the competition in the nomination "Donor Code: Heirs of Victory." The award statuette and winner's diploma were presented by the Deputy Minister of Health of the Russian Federation, A. N. Plutnitsky.

Nikolay Daykhes, Chairman of the Coordinating Council for Blood and Bone Marrow Donorship under the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, organizer of the campaign, noted: "All participants have made an invaluable contribution not only to the development of the donor movement in Russia but also to preserving the memory of the feat of the victorious generation. On behalf of the Coordinating Council for Blood and Bone Marrow Donorship under the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, I express gratitude to everyone who organized donor events, who helped in their conduct, to volunteers, donors — today you are part of the history of our great country!"

Samara University continues the succession of generations not only in education, science, and engineering but also in blood donation!

Text by Tatyana Morozova, Head of the Center for Promoting Student Health

Photos provided by the conference organizers.