As a strategy towards raising public awareness amongst educational institutions, MOHAN Foundation’s Delhi Team had prepared a list of colleges across Delhi and send out formal letters to their principal/ vice-principal explaining the need to tap the youth and discuss Organ Donation with them.

 

Amongst 60 colleges contacted through this initiative, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences at Dwarka invited our team to sensitize it’s students and faculty members on organ donation on February 20, 2013. The college is named after the great Indian Mathematician of the 12^th century- Bhaskaracharya. It is a co-educational institute which comes under University of Delhi and offers B.Sc(Honours) courses in applied sciences(electronics, instrumentation & food technology, biomedical, microbiology, computers & polymers)

 

The session was incorporated during the “Event Week” being conducted by the fine arts, NSS and Eco club of the college. The session started with the student coordinator welcoming Dr Anil K Bali, vice principal and MOHAN Foundation’s team with a potted plant (rather than plucking flowers). A small write up on MOHAN Foundation was shared with the audience by the student coordinator.  The presentation on organ donation and transplantation dealt with concepts of organ donation, cardiac/brain death, eye/skin/solid organ donation, organ donor card and the law (THO Act). The students watched the whole presentation with great interest and attention. The group on the whole was very energetic, enthusiastic and full of fresh ideas. Queries expressing doubts on whether coma is the same as brain death, recipients rejecting organ transplants and religion (Islam) disapproving of organ donation were handled effectively after the session. Students also shared the need for such awareness sessions in the rural areas.

 

Following the awareness talk, two competitions viz: T- Shirt painting and Advertisement Creation on the concept of Organ Donation was also conducted. The MF team was also requested to judge these events along with the faculty members. The students were very participative and came up with different ways of expressing the concept. Apart from the competition participants, students from the audience were eager to come on the dias and share their own views on Organ Donation through a small 1 minutes message or a song.

 

The conclusion of the event truly showcased the institutions tradition of ‘nurturing life’.

 

Around 85 students attended the talk and participated in the events, out of which 40 took organ donor cards.