From Kashmir to Kumari, Delhi man walks for a cause

Chennai: In an attempt to spread awareness on blood donation, 33-year-old Kiran Verma from New Delhi took an initiative to walk 15,000 km across the country. Starting his journey from Lal Chowk in Srinagar, Kiran has travelled more than 10 states across the country and is currently in Chennai.

“I walked more than 3,500 kilometres till Bangalore in last 2 months. I have met more than 3 lakh people across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Daman, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. The mission is to encourage at least 10 people every kilometre to take a pledge to donate blood at least once in their life. If this happens then this 15,000 kilometres of the journey is going to save at least 1,50,000 potential lives through blood donation,” says Kiran.

The voluntary awareness campaign led by Kiran is not restricted to India, but also neighbouring Nepal and Bhutan. Kiran shares his thoughts on blood donation with students in colleges, universities, public places like malls, restaurants, railway stations, bus stands etc. 

Kiran lost his mother due to cancer at the age of seven. He donated blood for the first time for his teacher, who was suffering from some kidney ailment and has donated 40 times by now. 

“I wanted some extra marks from my teacher,” he jokingly said. However, I was completely moved when my teacher’s son was thankful to me for the help. It became a major turning point in my life and I realised how every drop of blood counts in saving the lives of the people, says Kiran.

Kiran Verma is the founder of Simply Blood - World’s First Virtual Blood Donation Platform and First Social Media Platform for Blood Donation, which is an initiative by Change With One Foundation to encourage blood donation. The organization also has a smartphone application as a platform to seek or volunteer to donate blood.

“Every day more than 12,000 people die in India due to lack of blood and more than 6 lakh units of blood is being wasted every year due to lack of coordination between blood bank and hospitals. The idea of the journey is to sensitise people on a way of giving back to the society by donating blood and also informing them of Simply Blood App or website, which is a platform through which anyone can seek or donate blood using at zero cost to the donor or seeker,” said Kiran. 
In last one year 2,000 potential lives have been saved in 11 countries on our app.

This is absolutely free on our app and Simply Blood charged nothing from either donor or seeker, he adds. 

Kiran Verma can be contacted at 9810670347.