Social Activist and social worker Kiran Verma, who started his 21,000 kms walk for blood awareness in India from Thiruvananthapuram on December 18, 2021 reached Kohima on November 26.
Verma, is a Delhi based social worker who founded “Change With One Foundation” under which he runs two programs Simply Blood and Change With One Meal.
The mission for the walk is to spread awareness about blood donation among people so that nobody has to die waiting for blood in India after 31st December 2025. This walk, according to a press release issued by Verma, is going to be the “longest blood awareness campaign ever by an individual in the world” which will run for more than two years.
Due to COVID-19, voluntary blood donation in India has gone significantly down since the last three years. Therefore, this walk is to encourage around 5 million new blood donors to donate blood, so that blood banks and hospitals do not run dry on blood.
Till now Verma has walked for more than 17,700 kms covering 229 districts across 17 states/UTs and reached Kohima district on November 26. He has also covered Dimapur, Chumoukedima, Niuland, Tseminyu, Wokha, Mokokchung, Longleng, Mon, Tuensang, Zunheboto districts in Nagaland.
On June 19, 2023, Kiran Verma initiated a unique record by crossing three nations (Bangladesh, India and Nepal) in a single day on foot through Siliguri corridor. To support his walk, 126-blood donation camps has been organized in different part of the country through which more than 26,722 units of blood has been collected, claims Verma.
Apart from the camps more than 9000 individual blood donors have donated blood in their personal capacity at different blood banks across India and abroad to support this campaign. On September 15, 2022, Verma inaugurated a blood bank in Hyderabad in the name of PV Narasimha Rao’s name built by their family members.
A 3.5 kms Marathon was also organized in Varanasi where more than 100 people participated. His next destination after Kohima will be Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and other parts of North East India.
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Story behind the cause:
Kiran Verma started Simply Blood when his blood was sold to a poor family (from Raipur, Chhattisgarh) in Delhi where the wife was compelled to get into prostitution to pay medical bills for her husband’s treatment.
After donating blood for free, Verma met the family and where he got to learn about the struggles of the family. This led the social activist to leave his job the same day and took upon the responsibility and goal that “nobody should die because of lack of blood by 2025 in India”.
According to Verma, everyday more than 12,000 people fail to acquire blood in India, due to which more than 3 million people die waiting for blood. “If 5 million youth start donating blood, then there will be not even a single death due to non-availability of blood in India,” states Verma.
Stating that the culture of donating blood in the country is missing, Verma adds, “To reach that goal, we have to engage people and our community, which can make our dream possible. This walk is only to make it happen.”
Under “Change With One Foundation”, Verma runs two programs Simply Blood and Change With One Meal. According to Verma, Simply Blood is the world’s first virtual blood donation platform, connecting blood donors and seekers real time (just like Uber) without charging anything to anyone. It was launched on 29th January 2017 and till date saved more than 35,000 potential lives through blood donation. Change With One Meal is an initiative which serves unlimited meals for Rs.10 in Delhi. Till date, the Foundation claims that it has served more than 4,00,000 meals in the last one year.
