On August 28, 2015, MOHAN Foundation conducted an awareness session on organ donation for the residents of Beri village in Jhajjar district of the state of Haryana. Beri is about 65 kms from Gurgaon.
This session was organised and coordinated by Dinesh Kumar, one of the residents of the village, studying in Delhi. Dinesh, along with his friends, runs an organization called "Yuva jagriti Evam Samajik Utthan Manch" which undertakes social initiatives for the welfare and awareness of the villagers. In the past, they have organized Blood donation camps, legal awareness camps, health check-up camps, etc.
In the Foundations' experience in counseling families for organ donation at hospitals in Gurgaon, it has been observed that a lot of patients in these hospitals come from neighboring rural areas. Most families are accompanied by large groups of men and counseling them for organ donation becomes a very challenging task. Very often, the decision makers cannot be accessed and the collective aggression of these groups makes it absolutely impossible to sensitively broach the subject of organ donation.
It is obvious that the messaging and public awareness activities on organ donation are not reaching these rural areas. This talk was the first step towards this direction.
The session was organized in the Sarasvati Shishu Mandir. Students of classes IX and X attended the session along with ward heads and members of the municipal corporation, school staff, Medical Officer of Beri and some residents of the village.
Ms Pallavi Kumar explained the concepts of organ donation and transplantation primarily focusing on the types of donations, what all could be donated, who all could donate the organs. She also explained how brain death occurs, its reasons, its signs, who all diagnose it, etc. Special mention about eye donation and how each of us could contribute towards the cause was stressed upon. The residents shared the PGI Rohtak was the nearest centre for corneal donation.
The audience showed a lot of enthusiasm and ensured their full support towards the cause. The general sentiment was, that in the time to come, Haryana would emerge as a strong organ donation state.
Dinesh thanked the MOHAN Foundation team for coming so far and taking the session. He expressed his wish to organize more such sessions with MOHAN Foundation in future.
There were close to 50 people present and 20 donor cards were picked.
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