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Many students from the Gertrud Bäumer vocational college took part in the blood donation campaign this year. Blood donation became a group experience.
Plettenberg – The willingness to help was great: Numerous students from the Gertrud-Bäumer-Berufskolleg (GBBK) donated their blood. Representatives of the German Red Cross (DRK) explained that a blood donation is almost an event for today’s youth.
Blood donation has a tradition: pride in helping
The annual visit of the German Red Cross has now become a good tradition at the GBBK – however, due to the pandemic, the blood donation campaign was not possible in 2020. But now the adult students of the Gertrud Bäumer vocational college once again had the opportunity to help people with their blood donation at the German Red Cross blood donation service. The five-person team from the German Red Cross West blood donation service was happy to come and give the students the opportunity to donate on site.
Just as happy to donate their blood as their numerous classmates: Joelina Gaida (left) and Leon Eisenbach, here with the DRK employee Eda Taner in front of the DRK vehicle at the GBBK. Karsten Meininghaus © Karsten Meininghaus
“Since blood donation is an important part of the medical care of patients, we travel to schools to reach out to young people. We experience time and again that blood donation becomes a group experience that the young people enjoy.
But many are also proud afterwards because they take on social responsibility and can help up to three people,” says Natascha Ridder, the DRK’s day-to-day manager.
Blood donation questionnaire: serious matter
But the fact that blood donation is a helpful and serious matter had already been explained to the students at a preparatory information and educational event.
The top priority is to protect both the patients in need of help and the health of the respective donors. And so all interested parties had to answer a comprehensive list of questions in order to exclude risks as far as possible.
However, this did not dampen the willingness to help, as students from a total of seven different classes gathered one after the other in the GBBK auditorium. 25 students took part. For most of them, helpfulness and curiosity were the motivation for the donation.
Blood donation is painless
The DRK team was pleased to see that this was not the last blood donation for many of them. Most of the students confirmed that the procedure was painless: “I would definitely do it again because it is really important and it didn’t hurt at all,” explained student Joelina Gaida from the 12th grade at the GBBK.
To regain their strength and as a “small” compensation for their willingness to donate blood, those involved were given a small snack and a cutting board as a gift.
At lunchtime, site manager Uwe Benninghaus was very satisfied with the organizational process and especially with the willingness and discipline of his students: “I can only expressly praise the students for the fact that so many of them made use of the opportunity to donate blood.”
Blood donations were also plentiful in Herscheid. There were long queues in the community hall. The upper age limit has been removed.
