Sustainability project committed to solve the blood issue in Egypt via health awareness and empowering individuals to contribute to their communities.

Problem

The main problem, tackled by the Triple Effect is the lack of quantity and quality of blood in Egypt.WHO claims that a minimum of 3% of a country’s population is needed to sustain nation’s blood supply.The National Blood Transfusion Services in Egypt currently estimates the number of donors to be an alarming 1% of Egypt’s total population.Moreover, more than half of Egypt’s donors come from high-risk groups (family replacements, obliged donors, etc.)that threatens the safety of the blood supply. As a result,patients who need constant blood transfusion(Thalassemia patients for ex.) not only struggle with getting enough amount of blood to sustain their lives, but also live with transfusion transmitted deiseases.This is resulted by the lack of culture for regular voluntary blood donation.

Solution

The Triple Effect is a sustainability project that is committed to triple the number of regular voluntary blood donors in Egypt from 1% to 3%.We empower organizations and youth groups to fulfil their role as active citizens by adopting the Triple Effect program, a low-cost and high-impact blood donation initiative.By this approach we are trying to address the quantity, quality and sustainabilty dimensions of the issue.Youth groups and organizations are low-risk communities with regards to non-eligibility and/or blood contamination. Because of this, they hold much potential in being a safe source of regular blood donors for the nation.This is why we approach companies and universities and empower them to take ownership of the initiative, to adopt and develop it, to spread awareness and to contribute to their respective communities.We develop the Triple Effect as a plug&play CSR initiative to be adopteb by corporates and as an empowering model for university students.

Example

The Triple Effect Program empowering model is focused on active citizenship through blood donation.It has 3 main dimensions that work towards sustainability:GET,GIVE,PAY IT FORWARD.Get:Become active citizens through awareness and know-how on health and blood donation, via our awareness programs.Give:Adopt the Triple Effect and run a blood drive in your organization and join us in solving the blood issue in Egypt.Pay it forward:Sread blood donation and health awareness in your respective community and help create a ripple effect. The model aims to empower individuals to adopt the cause as their own, to develop it and to bring it to their communities. The model is a linking point between organisations (corporates and universities)and communities. The model functions via Blood Chamapions- volunteers in the respecitve organisations,whom we support and empower to adopt the program as their own (university clubs, CSR projects), to impact their peers by spreading health and blood donation awareness, to organize blood drives and to contribute to their communities via health awareness or community engagement. Currently we are targetting universities in rural and urban areas and launching the Triple Effect competition which aims to give knolwledge,mentorship and seed funding(via our corporate partners)to university students which would develop their entrepreneurial spirit,creating innovative approaches to solving the blood issue.These ideas will be implemented accross 8 universities accross Egypt and will bring business and universities working together for solving the blood issue.

Marketplace

Our peers are are all enitities, collecting blood on national level- blood banks,other NGOs and governmental structures. Our main differenciating factor is our approach of targeting organisations and youth groups as a low risk target groups and our empowering model which targets a basic need through developing sustainable solution, relying on active citizenship.The current situation of blood donation and transfusion in Egypt is characterised by a multitude of steakholders and lack of unified database, information system and unified process,applicable to all entities. There is a need of collective action and united efforts in order to create sustainable solutions.The main challenge would be unwillingless from the other steakholders to collaborate in terms of building an unified process.