MTN Ghana Foundation has announced the comeback of its annual blood donation exercise dubbed ‘Save a Life’, after a two-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme was initiated to give staff of MTN, its trade partners and the public an opportunity to show love on Valentine’s Day by donating a unit of blood to help save lives.
This year, the campaign will take place in all 16 regions simultaneously on Tuesday 14th February 2023 between 8am – 4pm. The annual Valentine’s Day blood donation exercise is this year targetted at collecting 4,000 units of blood to stock various blood banks across the country.
Commenting on the upcoming event, Senior Manager for Sustainability and Social Impact, Robert Kuzoe, reiterated the Foundation’s commitment to improvements in Ghana’s health care delivery. “By running this blood donation exercise, it is our desire to help alleviate the high number of maternal mortality cases since loss of blood is one of the leading causes of maternal death.”
Mr. Kuzoe urged people to go out in their numbers to all the donation-points in the various regions to express their love on Valentine’s Day by donating a unit of blood to help save a life.
“According to the National Blood Transfusion Service, about 36% of the national blood supply is from voluntary donations – and this is not encouraging. We entreat our staff, stakeholders and the entire public to help stock the blood banks – especially after the end of year festivities and, most especially, the post-pandemic effect of causing a reduction in voluntary blood donations,” he said.
Since inception of the initiative in 2011, over 20,000 units of blood have been collected.
The ‘Save A Life’ project has earned the MTN Foundation some recognition: including ‘Highest Corporate Blood Donor’ in 2013; the ‘Second-Highest Corporate Donor’ in 2014; and ‘One of the Highest Corporate Donors’ in 2015.
