A Humanitarian Appeal

Photos: Courtesy

Shamim (not his real name) was searching frantically for a donor with O negative blood. Without a donor, his mother's life would be at risk after a major surgical operation in her stomach. After an exhaustive search, Shamim finally got a donor from Dhaka University's voluntary blood donor group called Badhon.

It is a blood donating organisation run by university students all over the country. In most of the public universities in Bangladesh, there are units of Badhon and you get army of voluntary blood donors who are all university students. The organisation has achieved a reputation for saving lives of millions of people all over the country since its inception in 1997.

However, last week, students from Dhaka University's Muktijoddha Ziaur Rahman Hall unit of Badhon came up with an activity which created a stir amongst the youth. On September 4, 2015 Badhon's volunteers arranged a grand rally in Dhaka University premises with a very positive petition. Their appeal is to Mark Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook, to make blood group a requirement for opening account in this social media website which is one of the most popular of its kind.  

Facebook has become a very popular medium of connectivity. A large part of the world's population especially the young generation are its users and remain connected through Facebook. To make use of this connectivity for saving human lives, our youths have proposed that Facebook should require its users to enter their blood group and provide information about the date of their last donation, if they have donated or are eligible to donate blood.

Facebook will show the blood donation status that is the users' blood group and last date of donation as it shows birthday alert of its users in the user timeline.  Saspa Kareem, secretary of Badhon's Muktijoddha Ziaur Rahman Hall unit says, "Finding blood donors of a particular blood group is a very challenging task. If you cannot manage a donor, your dear one's life may be at stake."

"As Facebook has created a huge platform of connectivity, it can contribute a lot to save human lives by sharing information on their user's blood group and donation status," he adds

During the rally where hundreds of youth and teachers gathered to raise the petition, Professor Dr A A M S Arefin Siddique, Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University says, "Human blood has no alternative. Your donation of small amount of blood can save a human life. Not only on Facebook, but also blood group should be mentioned in all types of identity card."

"I hope the facebook authority will take note of this very justifiable and humanitarian appeal of our students, he adds."

A couple of months ago, Bangladeshi Facebook users were criticised at home and abroad for posting irrelevant comments on a post made by its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Now it's the Bangladeshi youths who have come forward with a proposal for Facebook which can save millions of human lives all over the world. We hope that Facebook will respond to this humanitarian appeal by creating option to know its users' blood donation status and contribute to save millions of human lives.