Activity 1 - Planning and implementation of any ONE community service activities of your

choice outdoors with your family members or housemates or colleagues or friends (Total
members: Not more than 10 – include you). Limited to 5 pages only.

PLANNING OF THE BLOOD DONATION CAMP

(a) Theme

Make availability of sufficient blood stock for daily usage in Sri Lanka.

(b) Introduction/background of the programme

As per the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) report 2021, there are 385,054 blood
donations in Sri Lanka. However, this has reduced compared for previous years mainly due to
the influence of COVID 19 pandemic situation. The previous blood collections statistics are
shown below.

Due to various reasons, requirement of blood is getting increased and following statistics show
the blood usage in Sri Lanka in year 2019, 2020 and 2021.

It is learnt that the daily requirement of various types of blood for the patients in Sri Lanka is
catered through the blood bank and hence maintaining sufficient stock at particular location is
utmost important. Based on above reports, it is learnt that the initiative for organizing a blood
donation camp is timely needed in order to increase the number of blood collections. Hence,
the initiative was taken to arrange a blood donation camp at Vivekaramaya Viharasthanaya,
Makola North.

(c) Objectives of the programme

Goal:

To strengthen the capacity of blood transfusion services in Sri Lanka to sustainably conduct
various types of blood transfusion services around the country.

Objectives:

1. Conduct awareness program for the locals around the Vivekaramaya

Viharasthanaya, Makola North area about the importance of blood donation.

2. Coordinate to arrange blood transfusion camp at a suitable location in order to

supply blood requirement to the blood bank, which meets the needs of the service and
the local population.

(d) Proposed venue/time/date

Vivekaramaya Viharasthanaya, Makola North from 09.00 Hrs to 14.00 Hrs on 05th January 2024.

(e) Estimated expenditure/financial implications

Location reservation - Free of Charge

Transportation for the team from Blood bank - Free of charge

Buddha Poojawa and Arms giving - Rs. 10,000.00

Meal arrangements for the organizing committee and blood bank team - Rs. 8,000.00

Milk packet, Bun and banana per each donor (Approx. 60 donors) - Rs. 15,000.00

Standby vehicle for the transport arrangements - Rs. 5,000.00

Monuments for the blood bank team (8 Members) - Rs. 20,000.00

Other miscellaneous - Rs. 5,000.00

Total Rs. 63,000.00

(f) Tentative programme

06.30 - Buddha poojawa

06.45 - Morning Almsgiving at Vivekaramaya Viharasthanaya
07.30 - Cleaning and Preparation of the location including bedding arrangements
08.00 - Presence of the team from Blood bank and preliminary arrangements
08.20 - Presence of the Doctor
08.30 - Breakfast and tea
09.00 - Start the blood donation camp
12.15 - Lunch
13.00 - Start the blood donation camp
14.00 - termination of the program
15.00 - Stocking the collected blood for transportation
16.00 - Departure of the team from Blood bank
16.15 - Cleaning the surrounding
17.00 - Departure

(g) List of members of the implementation committee

Negotiations with blood bank for arranging the event/ Location arrangement and basic needs
facilitation committee

Mr. WA Sampath Gunarathna

Mr. WA Chinthaka Gunarathna
Mr. Charith Perera
Mrs. Dinushi Perera

Meal arrangement and treatment committee

Mrs. P Manori Pushpakumari

Mr. WA Sushira Gunarathna
Mrs. Dilini Gunasekara
Mrs. Chalani Rekha

Transportation Committee

Mr. MP Bandara
(h) Gantt Chart
Events 1st week 2nd week 3rd week 4th 1st week
December week Jan 2024
2023
Micro planning XXXXX
Obtaining Approval and XXXXXX
location arrangements
Meeting with stakeholders XXXXXX
Awareness generation XXXXX XXXXXX
(Propaganda)
Line listing of willing XXXXXX
donors
Blood donation camp 05/01/2024

(i) Groups and the total target audience

The blood donation camp is arranged to support blood bank to store the daily blood
requirement. However, the majority of community is unaware about this blood donation
process and hence the volunteering for such event is very minimal. Therefore, it was planned to
create the awareness programme on the Poya day prior to the blood donation camp through
the loku hamuduruwo at temple. The targeted audience was the temple attendees on Poya
day( 26th November 2023) evening. These people are used to pass the massage to other non-
attendees on particular day.

IMPLEMENTATION

1. Describe the importance of implementation

Blood donation is a vital part of worldwide health care. It relates to blood transfusion as a life-
sustaining and life-saving procedure as well as a form of therapeutic phlebotomy as a primary
medical intervention. Over one hundred million units of blood are donated each year
throughout the world. Why you should donate blood? Here are the reasons why you should
donate blood.

The first and foremost is there is no substitute for blood. A single donation can save three lives
and every three seconds someone need a blood transfusion. One blood donation provides
different blood components such as A, AB, O and O+.
Blood is the most precious gift that anyone can give to another person. So your friends or family
may need our blood someday. This is because blood cannot be manufactured. Despite medical
and technological advances, blood cannot be made, so donations are the only way we can give
blood to those who need it.

Blood is an important resource, both for planned treatments and urgent interventions. It can
help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions live longer and with a higher quality of
life, and supports complex medical and surgical procedures. Blood is also vital for treating the
wounded during emergencies of all kinds (natural disasters, accidents, armed conflicts, etc.)
and has an essential, life-saving role in maternal and perinatal care.

2. Use the key elements in the implementation of community service

When blood donation event is concerned, it is an event that most of the people had not
experienced in the society. There are various mind sets of people regarding blood donation.
Some people are afraid of blood donation mainly due to Fear of needles or pain, Fear of
weakness after donation, Fear of feeling faint or dizzy, Fear of infection, and may be due to
various other social and cultural barriers. Hence, it is most important to kill the fear of the
people related to blood donation by conducting awareness programmes. The proper education
of blood collecting procedure must be explained to the people during general gathering
through the public media.

Another few barriers for the community service like blood donation are the Long time spent for
the blood donation purpose, Level of privacy during screening, poor attitude of staff,
Inconvenient of donor clinic etc. These barriers need to be overcome by addressing the donors
with kindness and maintaining the privacy and security during blood donation. Further, it is
essential to maintain “first come first serve” policy in order to avoid disappointment of other
donors during blood donation. It is the worm well come and the kind treatment from the
organizing committee matters most as the donors must be felt that there presence is valued for
the event.

3. Demonstrate skills and social responsibility within the community

The human blood will get replenished every 120 days. Hence, those bloods can be donated to
others for useful requirement. There are many blood requirements in the society. Some of
those could be recognized as the replacement for the bleeding, replacement for some diseases,
research purposes, pre and post operating situations etc. Hence, there is huge blood
requirement per day all over the Sri Lanka which is unseen to the society. Hence, it is essential
to arrange various programmes to collect blood from the society.
In this way, I also thought that the necessity of blood collection and therefore the matter was
discussed with my husband. Thereafter, he discussed the matter with his brothers and other
relatives/ friends those who are in connection and all agreed to arrange such a blood collection
event. The group meeting was arranged in order to discuss the matter on 1 st December 2023.
During the discussion, it was highlighted that the need for small teams to arrange various
activities connected with the whole programme. Therefore, following teams were formed in
order to successfully arrange the event.
 Negotiations with blood bank for arranging the event/ Location arrangement and
basic needs facilitation committee
 Propaganda team
 Meal arrangement committee
 Transportation Committee

4. Apply communication, leadership and team work skills

While conducting the blood donation camp, it is important to maintain the sound
communication, leadership and team work in order to succeed the event. The proper briefing
about the event procedure will guide the donors smoothly without any confusion. Further,
during donors’ screening process, it is necessary to ask appropriate questions from them. These
questions should not harm or make feel uncomfortable them. There has to be privacy while
these questions are shooting to the donor.

When arranging this event, there has to be strong leadership exercised. All events to be
coordinated as per the sequence and flow have to be maintained. All the un-scheduled events
to be avoided as those will disturb the conducing of event. At the same time, all the teams to
be coordinated together to check about the progress. After the first meeting, there were
meetings conducted by the team leader every week to check the progress of actions took place.
These meetings were manly online meetings and these meetings clarified the doubts of the
team members. The whole team gathered 2nd January 2024 to discuss final arrangements. All
the sub group members elaborated their role during blood donation camp and all others were
convinced about the whole programme. This demonstrated the team work we had arranging
this blood donation camp.

Activity 2. Video recording

[Link]
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Activity 3 – Writing a reflective journal.

With an ever increasing demand on blood supplies worldwide, there is an immense need to
ensure a safe and sufficient supply of blood products. However, recruiting and retaining blood
donors remain key challenges for blood agencies. In an attempt to address these problems,
researchers have identified a range of socio-demographic, organizational, physiological, and
psychological factors that influence people’s willingness to donate blood.

Millions of lives can be saved by blood, and the next generation is the world's best hope for a
secure blood supply. Blood transfusion is essential to health care systems because it increases
life expectancy and improves the quality of life for patients with chronic illnesses or acute
severe illnesses. Today's medical professionals deal with severe hemorrhagic complications
following major surgeries, deliveries, or accidents; severe blood disorders; and oncologic
ailments that necessitate blood transfusions. Under these circumstances, a vast amount of
blood is needed to satisfy a variety of needs, and many nations struggle with the growing
demand for blood or its constituent parts.

When arranging a blood donation camp as a Community Social Responsibility event, there are
various events taking place. Each event has its own significance. In this reflective writing is
concerned with these all aspects related to the arranging this event and be briefing. The initial
discussions for conducting this event was took place in 1 st week of December 2023. During this
discussion, the brother in law agreed to negotiate with the Blood bank to reserve a date for the
event.

First of all, the most important event is to reserve a date for this event. The date has to be
arranged on a weekend as it is more convenient to attract most people to the event. Then the
availability and possibility of team from the blood bank to be checked. For this purpose, it is
essential to get official approval for the event. When the approval is obtained officially, the
major part has been done and all team members were informed about the date of the event.
Then all the team members initiated arranging their events accordingly. The date was reserved
as the 5th of January 2024. At the same time, the brother in law promised to discuss with the
loku hamuduruwo at Vivekaramaya Viharasthanaya, Makola North for reserving the location for
the event. The loku hamuduruwo has promised to allocate the Dana shalawa for the blood
donation purpose on said date. Up on reserving the date and the location, I felt that the major
tasks were completed and I felt huge relief.

Accordingly we prepared a poster to display at various locations and through whatsapp and
facebook.
This poster provided the access to all the donors who are willing to donate blood. So they could
keep one session of the day vacant for this purpose. It gives me some positive thought that
there will be considerable amount of donors for the event as this is the most important and
essential achievement to be reached. During the morning session on specific day, when the
blood donation has started, I was counting the number of donors present to the location for
about 3 hours. Based on the number of attendees during that period, I was satisfied and felt
very comfortable thinking that the publicity has made up to the mark. This provided me the
immense pleasure being in the organizing committee.

Other major thing we had to arrange was the refreshments. There were two major meals to be
arranged. Apart from that, all the donors to be provided with the Nescafe as welcome drink and
some energetic food packet which included with milk on completion blood donation. The meal
packet for the blood donors included egg bun, egg samosa and vanilla flavoured milk packet.
The funding for these activities was organized through the friends and by ourselves.

The event took place on 5th January 2024 and at the beginning of the day early in the morning,
we prepared the Buddha Poojawa for the temple. On completion Buddha Poojawa, we
arranged almsgiving for the three Venerable theros residing at the temple. Thereafter the
cleaning of dana shalawa completed by at about 8.00 and arranged for the event.
The Blood donation mobile van of blood bank of Gampaha hospital was utilized for holding this
event. Staff from blood bank of Gampaha hospital was deputed for collecting blood units.
Standard screening protocol was followed prior to donation. Hemoglobin level was measured
by Hemocue method. A semi‑structured interview schedule was administered to those who
reported to the blood donation camp. As a token of appreciation, mementoes were given to
blood donors.

The whole event went smoothly and at the end of the day it was very successful event. All the
donors, the other supporters joined with the blood donation praised us for arranging such an
event in the Makola North area.
Activity 4. Has the compulsory community service course at universities eroded the spirit of
volunteerism among undergraduates’ students? Discuss

It goes without saying that individuals feel good when they serve others and give back to their
community in a positive and meaningful way. Volunteering can be particularly advantageous for
students in a number of ways. The advantages of serving others extend to a student's
community, health, and even future employment opportunities. Student volunteers feel better
and are happier as they develop new relationships and acquire skills that will help them in their
careers. They expand their network of support and fortify their links to the community.

Most students lead extremely busy, if not hectic, lives. Workplace and social demands, tests,
late-night study sessions, and assignments can all occasionally become debilitating and even
stressful. Experiences like volunteering can help kids develop time management skills and
emotional well-being outside of the classroom as they learn to manage their schedules and
become more autonomous.

It has been demonstrated that volunteering can lessen and even reverse the negative impacts
of stress, rage, and anxiety that can result in depression or problems with substance misuse.
Engaging in social contacts, helping and elevating others, making a positive influence, and
becoming a part of something bigger than you rself are some important mood-boosting
chances that come with community service.

The simple act of helping others is a very fulfilling and personally gratifying experience, and it's
one of the most important rewards of community service. As a result, one of the primary
motivations for students to pursue a career in social work may be the desire to support
deserving organizations that aid the underprivileged. Students can provide their time and skills
to assist causes close to their hearts by volunteering. Giving back encourages students to take a
moment to consider their influence. Their contributions through volunteer labor positively
reinforce a vital fundamental to success in an environment that frequently encourages a steady
flow of material, media, and tech consumption: even small actions have a tremendous impact
on the lives of individuals and organizations in need.

Building a network is crucial to students' career development. Students can meet and
collaborate with individuals who have similar interests by volunteering in groups, which
broadens their network of different peers and mentors.

Their newfound networks of other change-makers, volunteers, staff members, and board
members can serve as a source of inspiration and motivation as well as potentially lead to
future career opportunities! One can rely on their professional network for career guidance and
important introductions in their area once they graduate and are well into their career.
They are benefiting not just the community but also their chances for employment in the
future!

Employers may prefer to see meaningful work experience on a résumé, even in cases when
students have excelled academically and tested well. Fortunately, it makes no difference if it
originates from paid or unpaid labor! While enhancing the lives of others, service-learning
provides possibilities for skill development. Volunteering offers students the practical
experience that makes them stand out when they apply for jobs.

Students can apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-world situations with
practical ramifications in a field that interests them through community service. They will gain
proficiency in critical career skills such as problem-solving, time management, and leadership,
which will boost their confidence in job searches and interviews.

One excellent and effective approach to investigate various career pathways and prospects is
by volunteering! Volunteering in a field can assist students in determining whether a career
choice is a suitable fit for them directly. It's difficult to know for sure if a specific vocation is
something you will enjoy unless you take a tentative step into it, regardless of what you believe
you know or want. For example, volunteering at a law firm, legal non-profit, government
agency, or political organization can be very beneficial to pre-law students. They will be able to
add a lot of value to their law school application by expanding their knowledge, developing
transferable skills, and showcasing a strong interest in a legal career! Before committing to
several years of graduate-level school, they get to give it a shot.

Make your resume stick out from the competition! For new graduates and students,
volunteering can make it simpler to land their first entry-level position. Employing managers
look for relevant job experience, and many recent graduates might not have acquired these
competencies yet.

Volunteering is a way for students to stand out from the crowd of applications. It is important
to support them in strategically communicating the abilities they have acquired throughout
their volunteer job. Share with recruiters and hiring managers the administrative and teamwork
skills they have developed through volunteer work! This demonstrates their readiness for the
workforce and enhances their transcripts of academic and extracurricular activities.

Volunteering allows students to practice and develop an array of social relationships and other
soft skills beneficial to career ambitions.
Some examples include:

 Resourcefulness: Volunteering allows students to learn more about solving real-world

problems creatively while managing time and scarce resources effectively.
  Collaboration: When a student has volunteer experience on their resume, this
demonstrates commitment, empathy and a deeper understanding of interpersonal
interactions and teamwork, as well as highly sought-after skills in communication,
leadership and customer service.
 Initiative: Volunteering by its nature is voluntary, which means recruiters can easily see
that a student is motivated and takes the initiative, even without the compensation of
wages or personal gain. This reflects an entrepreneurial spirit and proactive approach to
their work.

A student will have the opportunity to work with individuals from a wide range of groups,
ethnicities, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds when they volunteer for a service-based
organization, both locally and overseas. These individuals are united by a common objective or
cause. The ability to collaborate and modify communication with various individuals and groups
of people will be extremely beneficial to a student's future career. They learn to be more
understanding and aware of viewpoints that are different from their own.

Working as a volunteer is a great way to practice being open-minded outside of the classroom.
College is all about cultural awakening and wide exchange of important ideas!

Engaging in community service enables and motivates students to make a difference in the
world and launch their careers.

As you can see, students join volunteer organizations, campaigns, and causes for a variety of
reasons that are meaningful to them. Even with a busy schedule, even a few hours a week of
volunteer work on the weekends or during summer vacation will make a significant difference
in their experience.

Finally, it is proposed several strategies that colleges can employ to support and inspire
students who want to give back to the community. This is timely needed situation as the
students don’t find their own time for initiating themselves for such kind of activities based on
modern education system. Hence, the universities can play a key role for bridging the society
and the students rather allowing students to be alone and act.

1. Include chances for service-learning in school curricula both within and outside
of the classroom.
2. Reward student volunteerism by giving out prizes, freebies, badges, and
academic credit to the most involved students.
3. Create a community service award that is given to students across the university
for their significant time and effort invested in a cause.
4. To make their service hours more significant as part of their education,
encourage students to keep track of their hours and consider the impact they have had.
5. Give scholarships to students who participate in civic life.
6. Lower the cost of attendance for students who are employed.
7. Organize volunteer opportunities so that students may quickly peruse and apply
to jobs that fit their professional interests and aspirations on a single webpage or job
board.