Facebook steps in to fill up blood donors gap in Bangladesh

Facebook is launching a blood donation feature in Bangladesh to make it easy for the people to find a donor when in need.

Nurul Islam Hasibbdnews24.com
Published : 22 Jan 2018, 06:14 PM
Updated : 22 Jan 2018, 06:15 PM

Hema Budaraju, Product Lead, Health, and Ritesh Mehta, Head of Programs, South Asia, of the social media giant say the new feature, second after India, will be introduced at 6am on Tuesday.

Speaking to bdnews24.com on Monday in Dhaka, they said they are getting huge response in India and in the four months of introducing the feature in October, over 6 million people have signed up as donors and thousands of people are using the feature.

“They are able to find a donor in a short amount of time,” Budaraju said.

Bangladesh is one of the 71 countries in the world, according to the WHO, that has a shortage of safe blood.

People often take to Facebook to appeal for blood donation. According to the Bangladesh government, over 30 million people use Facebook.

Budaraju said they had noticed thousands of people look for blood through Facebook posts each week in Bangladesh. There are 1,400 groups related to blood donation on Facebook, she said.

“This is where Facebook can help by finding ways to more efficiently bring blood donors, people and organisations together,” she said. They have spoken with the relevant stakeholders in Bangladesh including Sandhani, Red Crescent and BRAC before designing and launching the feature.

To sign up, people can edit their profiles to let others know that they are willing to donate blood or visit facebook.com/donateblood.

To help encourage participation, Facebook will show a message in the News Feed or users can edit their Profiles to sign up.

All information will remain private and set to Only Me by default, but users can choose to share their donor status more widely. This feature will be available on Android, iOS and the Internet.

When people are seeking donations, they will be able to create special posts to spread the word. Facebook will automatically notify blood donors who may be nearby to help.

Donors can then review the request and, if they wish to respond, contact the requester directly through a phone call.

The requester would not be able to see any information about the donor, unless the donor explicitly provides it when he or she replies.

When organisations are hosting a blood camp event in Bangladesh, they will be able to create an event on Facebook and nearby blood donors can be notified. Donors can review the event and indicate if they are going or interested.

Organisations interested in using the blood donations feature can contact: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/712333468960840