Interview

People deciding to devote part of their lives to blood donation seek support - from friends, colleagues, public organizations. Only few people know about state programs created to help the social undertakings of volunteers. One such program is the Presidential Grants Fund, the foundation that helped the graduate of Kursk Southwestern University Denis Sinyaev to create a blood donor club, the “Alaya liniya”.

Donor movement in the transport industry is at the highest level. Officials from the Ministry of Transport donate blood twice a year at their office and participate in campaigns. Director of the Administrative Department of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation Konstantin Pashkov told us about the growing popularity of blood donation among transport workers.

The world's largest cosmetics company L’Oréal is socially responsible. It attracts its emploees to charity. One of the most ambitious projects in this area is the Social Responsibility Day, and part of it is a donor action. Anna Dragina, PR manager of L’Oréal Russia, tells about how donor campaigns are held in the Russian branch of the largest international company in the beauty industry.

Deloitte is a multinational professional services network, it provides audit and consulting. Deloitte is presented in 7 cities in Russia with more than 2200 professionals. Besides main services company has volunteer and charity programs. Employees are actively involved in the donor movement. Pavel Boev, Regional Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development of Deloitte CIS, told us about developing of the corporate blood donation.

The employees of the largest Russian international airport “Sheremetyevo”, with route network covering more than 200 directions, have been regularly participating in donor actions since 2008. The Chairman of the Primary Trade Union Organization of Workers of the JSC Sheremetyevo International Airport Nelly Khomyakova told us how the airport management supports the donor movement.

The Donor day in the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music is like a revue. Each volunteer chooses his part to help in preparing blood donation campaign, and dealt with in a responsible manner. Students of the Academy truly believe that their “musical blood” will not only help restore health, but also open new creative abilities in people. This was told to us by the leader of the donor movement in the the Academy, Tatyana Eremeeva.

Many innovations are being introduced at the Republican Blood Transfusion Station in Ufa, aimed to create comfortable conditions for a donor. All improvements are carried out in the framework of the project “Prudent donation”. Ramil Khamitov, Chief Physician of the Blood Transfusion Station of the Republic of Bashkortostan, talks about how this project is being implemented.

Moscow airport “Domodedovo” has conducted Donor's day twice a year for a period of 8 years already. Part of the donor’s activities has been hold by administration of Domodedovo city district. Alexander Vlasov, press secretary of “Domodedovo” airport, will tell us more about how airport management supports donor movement, which became a part of corporate social responsibility.

Few years ago, employees of the Federal Registration Service (Rosreestr) have organized for the first time the Donor’s day, and today dozens of government institutions have followed their example. Yusup Agzamkhodjaev, the chairman of the trade union organization of the central office of the Federal State Register Service - the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography - told us that a good initiative always finds a response.

In the year of prime sport events, the publishing house "Argumenty I Fakty"(AiF) and the LG Electronics company jointly organized the Football Donor Day. The partners managed to turn blood donation into a fest day and a long-awaited meeting of friends. The event was attended by famous athletes, coaches, film actors and directors, politicians. Next to such famous, and, by the way, experienced donors, employees and readers of the newspaper were also not afraid to sit in the donor’s chair. Roman Pogorelov, Head of the Digital Projects Sales Service at the (AiF), will tell us more about the donor’s partnership event.

The Universities for medicine are and have always been the leading force in the donor program. From their student days, doctors pay special attention to the blood donation, and not only conduct scientific work, but also look for new ways to tell society about the meaning of it. It is a non-standard approach to the popularization of blood donation that gives development to the program - so says Tigran Muradyan, head of the Donor Committee of the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University.

Volunteering is important and, besides desire, requires special knowledge and training. There is serious approach to volunteer training on ongoing base in the Blood service. A volunteer school was opened by the Mordovian Blood Service, each year it graduates young professionals for the donor movement. Natalia Asanova, a public relations specialist at the Republican station of blood transfusion, told us about the school.

For the Russian Engineering Union, donorship became an important idea uniting people - employees of hundreds of enterprises. The wealth of experience of the donation development in the Union is an example of how to build a socially responsible work in a company at a high level and with the maximum result. This was told us by the vice-president of the Russian Engineering Union, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Economic Policy Vladimir Gutenev.

20th of April – National Blood Donor Day. We thank and congratulate all donors in Russia for their willingness to donate blood for patients in need of a transplant. Many donor’s events are held and of course many people donate blood on this day. We often ask donors in our interview about the donation procedure, what they feel, what they scare, what it means for them. Story about from Yegor Tischins’s life will help to answer these questions.

On the 7th All-Russian Forum of Blood Service the Blood Donor Center of the Republic of Mordovia got the majority of votes and became the absolute winner in the competition of professional mastery «Blood Service’s institution – 2014». Olga G. Makedonskaya, the medical director of Blood Donor Center in the Republic of Mordovia, disclosed her secret of success and told us her plans for the future in the interview.

Why idea of donorship attracts young people

Each donor has his own story of how he joined the donor movement. Here is one of them, the story of Sergey Nikolaevich Yefimov, "the Honorary Donor of the USSR", head of the public organization "The Donors of Murmansk".

Anton Telnov, the organizer of voluntary blood donorship movement in Siberian State Geodesy Academy (Novosibirsk) is telling about development of student blood donorship in regions.

About results of four years’ implementation in Russia of the state program of Blood Service modernization, about its further destiny and about a modern “face” of Russian Blood Service.

Why there can’t be too much donor blood and about the use of regular blood donation not only for patients, but for donors as well.