Jointly launched by NUS BINGO in collaboration with NUH on Friday, February 29^th 2008 at 10:00 AM outside the Engineering Auditorium, Block EA, Engineering Drive 1, Blood Donation Drive project was a tremendous success. The campaign and the core organizing team were supervised by Ehsan Aizad; Sudipto Bari and Zarir Ashraf Chowdhury being the chief project director and the deputy project director respectively.

Into its 6^th year, the young and dynamic student-run association NUS BINGO, for the first time in its history, has come up with such a scheme to heighten public awareness concerning the importance of regular blood donations in saving lives; and to educate people so as to erase all confusions and hindering myths associated with blood donations, thereby encouraging the youth to engage in this noble generous action. At 9:30 AM sharp the NUH staff and organizing team from NUS BINGO started setting up the equipment and making all necessary arrangements for the program at the venue specified. The drive commencement was well-timed and over 100 enthusiastic potential healthy donors turned up at the venue; of which 90 volunteers were able to register at the booth within the 3 hours’ duration of the drive. Arijit Paul Chowdhury from NUS BINGO’ Logistics department; assisted the NUH staff in taking all essential measurements like body temperature, blood pressure, haemoglobin level etc to determine the eligibility of the volunteers for making blood donations; while Rai Nausherwan Nazar and Saeed Sheikh together attended the registration booth and the waiting queue of participants.

The blood extraction procedure was operated smoothly through out the way, every donor was attended by NUH doctors with extra care to make them feel at ease. The nursing staff was very well-trained to skillfully handle the situation and avoid any unwanted disruptive inconveniences. To ensure timely and effective completion of the campaign, NUS BINGO’ organizing team confidently and professionally handled registration process, putting in their best effort to fairly cater to volunteers queuing there.

Unlike other usual blood donation drives, free personalized blood test reports (including Blood CP, Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis, HIV, Malaria and Blood Group) were mailed directly to successful donors by NUH so as to retain confidentiality. On the day of event, light refreshments & mini gifts were provided to donors from NUH. Both, successful donors and also the volunteers who couldn’t qualify the eligibility criteria due to some intrinsic deficiencies were offered Free membership of NUS BINGO.

We warm-heartedly thank all the volunteers for their generosity and the organizing team for their splendid effort. At this point, we feel an honor and pleasure to annunciate that the overwhelming participation of NUS undergraduate, graduate students and staff has been highly motivating for NUS BINGO; and being aware of the need for community-based services we look forward to taking further socially responsible steps in future.

(Writing by Fariha Khurshid; Editing by Ehsan Aizad)