Organ Donation Awareness Workshop in London

Sophy and Yvette attended an education workshop on Wednesday 19th September in London.

The workshop was hosted by the NHSBT and the primary topic was education for young people about blood, stem cell and organ donation. There were many different charities present and we learned about how these groups are raising awareness of organ donation in young people. Many of the groups had been started after the sudden loss of loved ones.

‘Team Margot Foundation’ for example were targeting primary schools in London with Black Asian Minority Ethnic and mixed race heritage to talk about blood and stem cell donation, at the other end of the scale, ‘The Hero Project’ is targeted at 16-18 year olds and ‘We are Donors’ are run by university students for university students.

Organ donation awareness is being carried out in various ways, with different resources targeted at different ages. All groups agreed that it would be good to share these resources with the NHS overseeing to make sure that we are all up to date with facts and data.

One of the topics raised was that there was no official organ donation logo.

One of the groups present ‘Live Life Give Life’ is planning to launch a competition to find a new design that can hopefully be used world wide. It will follow the theme of upcycling and re-cycling and is part of their Kids Revolution project.

The workshop helped to consolidate our remit. The Jemima Layzell Trust delivers informative talks with Jemima’s story at the heart. The Trust does not generate it’s own educational material and presents talks to all ages. The Trust is open to collaboration with other groups and would like to financially support projects that will successfully engage young people in talking about organ donation.

The main thing that came out of the day is that we must talk about organ donation to our loved ones, conversations can be multi-generational. Whilst, in this case, the children are being taught about organ donation, they need to be talking to their parents and grandparents about it too. In any organ donation situation the next of kin needs to agree with the donors wishes.

If you or your organisation would like to know more about this work, then please get in touch with us.