When women outnumbered men in blood donation

In the last month alone, we came across two blood donation camps which we will cherish in the archives of our good memories. On 3rd Jan, Sankalp organized a blood donation camp with the Terapanth Yuva Sangh, a Jain institution located in Gandhinagar, Bengaluru. It was one of those rare camps where women donors outnumbered men. A lady aged 54-55, who was one of the committee members, was the first donor for the day. What followed next was a crowd of saree-clad middle-aged housewives who were lined up to donate. In a camp where 49 people donated, more than half were women. This percentage would skew even further if participation is considered as the sole factor. Many of these women were deferred due to low haemoglobin, a common problem with women donors in India, but it was good to see so many women coming forward and donate blood. In a different blood donation drive organized in the gated community members of Mantri Espana, a housing colony located in one of the posh localities of Bellandur, Bengaluru. Here we came across a similar, and yet, uniquely different experience. The women here were different. These liberated working-class women had participated in a marathon the very morning. After running 10 kilometers, they were willing to rest only after they had donated blood. Some women were deferred here too due to low haemoglobin, but yet again, women easily outnumbered men here. 27 units were collected, a good number for a residential camp. The two camps organized in a single month left us thinking. After collecting 65,000 units across 700 blood donation camps, these were first hand experiences for us. Of course, camp organized in women’s college or with women’s clubs in the past, participation of women is generally high. But given the setup here were those of a public camp, both these camps really stood out in our 8 years of experience in organizing blood donation camps. To be frank, it is these experiences that make our work worthwhile.