Organ Donation and Transplantation Initiative
For a person with end-stage organ failure, the only chance for survival is an organ transplant. Unfortunately, the waiting list for organ recipients is long because transplantable organs and willing organ donors are scarce. Approximately one person with kidney failure will die each week while waiting for an organ transplant.
Our Organization's goal is to take the lead and change the already present misconceptions and misinformation and to promote/ advocate for legal organ donation, and to provide a continuous initiative towards the advocacy of organ transplant and donation, aimed at both increasing the awareness of the public and offering up to date scientific opportunities for those involved in the field.
About You
About You
First Name
Rajia
Last Name
Ragab
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Organ Transplantations & Donation Initiative
Organization Website
Organization Phone
Organization Address
Organization Country
Egypt, QHR
Country where this project is creating social impact
Egypt, QHR
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
Less than a year
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Organ Donation and Transplantation Initiative
What change do you want to bring to the world?
For a person with end-stage organ failure, the only chance for survival is an organ transplant. Unfortunately, the waiting list for organ recipients is long because transplantable organs and willing organ donors are scarce. Approximately one person with kidney failure will die each week while waiting for an organ transplant.
Our Organization's goal is to take the lead and change the already present misconceptions and misinformation and to promote/ advocate for legal organ donation, and to provide a continuous initiative towards the advocacy of organ transplant and donation, aimed at both increasing the awareness of the public and offering up to date scientific opportunities for those involved in the field.
What are the primary activities of your project?
-Launching an Event targeting Medical Students & Young Doctors.
-Build a well-trained core team of Medical Students.
-Launching of Awareness Campaigns advocating for the Green Ribbon.
-Research Competitions on up-to-date technicalities in Organ Transplantation.
-Forming a Database of Donors
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
"Patients have waited too long for this law to come out," Mahmud el-Metini, a leading liver transplant specialist, told IRIN. "Tens of thousands of Egyptians are in bad need of legislation that enables them to have organ transplants."
With the impending organ donation law, we want to raise awareness so as to render it effective once it sees the light.
What stage is your project in?
Idea phase
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
This initiative will be directed at the Egyptian population as a whole. From young children still learning what organ donation means, to the jaded Egyptian citizen who obstinately refuses to donate his organs due to religious misconception, we aim to target one demographic at a time, shattering all the barriers they have against giving life to others.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
The following was written by the founder:
It was almost three years ago, when I started to find interest in the Organ Transplant concept. I did not know what it was back then but the allure of being able to recycle the organs within the human population has been of great interest to my younger self.
In March 2010, I attended the 1st Egyptian Organ Transplant Congress, where my true passion for the issue was unleashed. In effect of the stirring curiosity within me, I joined an elective in Tufts Medical Center- Transplant Surgery department after my fifth year of medical school. I assisted in both live and deceased kidney donor transplants, followed up on patients and engaged in the Transplant teem meetings.
Ever since then I have become obsessive about the topic, I plan on taking it on as a career. I feel like the concept is very much worth spending one’s lifetime exploring and developing.
1 year away from graduation, I decided to take an initiative towards my passion by starting off through the AUSSS, which I currently represent, and our neighbors SSS, which have both become an exemplary organizational structure and have both shown throughout history how medical students can provide a high level of professionalism through careful planning and decisiveness.
Omar Shaker
AUSSS President
2010/2011
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Approximately 200 words left (1600 characters).
How many people have been impacted by your project?
Fewer than 100
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
101- 1,000
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Raise enough awareness within universities and other communities to advocate and support organ donation, in order to fight the religion related stigma in the Egyptian society.
Task 1
A seminar given by University professors on Organ Transplantation and Donation and how to fight the stigmas. This will lead to a team of well qualified volunteers to advocate the cause
Task 2
Awareness campaigns to start first within university campuses, recruiting more people as the campaigns go along, which will eventually help with branching beyond campuses.
Task 3
Provide medical students and interns with opportunities to join researches conducted on organ transplant.
Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Forming a database of donors, since there are no donors databases in Egypt. This will help with the implementation of the organ donation law, which should be in effect by then.
Task 1
Obtaining an area/space in which the database can be formed and stored
Task 2
Designing a system that will help match organ donors with organ recipients. This is no small feat since Egyptian hospitals do not communicate or exchange information.
Task 3
Have trained personnel running the system efficiently and smoothly in order to locate and match donors with recipients.
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
The maintenance of the matching system and hopefully evolving enough to encompass not only Egypt's capital, Cairo, but the whole country, so as to save as many lives as possible. To raise more awareness within the Egyptian population and not let old and deeply embedded stigmas stop people who can help from donating and saving lives.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
The cooperation and efficiency of hospitals in giving out their patients' information for correct matching, whether these hospitals have donors or recipients. The UNOS organization in the USA is the model to strive to implement. It is a non-profit plan whose sole aim is to provide appropriate matching.
Tell us about your partnerships
We have already contacted a few University hospitals, and professors in these universities. So far a professor will be donating the space in which the setting up of the system will take place, and the hospitals vouched complete cooperation with the matching information needed.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
Less than $1,000
Explain your selections
Fund raising on school campus, whether by donations or bake sales or such.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
A Problem Targeting, and Monitoring and Evaluation systems were developed for each task set within each project. All expected obstacles or problems were targeted and pointed out. A method is then developed to overcome these obstacles. Then a checklist of points called Monitoring and Evaluation will assess whether the task was successful or not based on the outcome of each task and whether it achieved its goal or not. The main objective of these systems is to help maintain and expand the progress of the awareness campaigns along side with the organ matching system to reach more and more people each year.
Challenges
Which barriers to health and well-being does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Other (Specify Below)
SECONDARY
Restrictive cultural norms
TERTIARY
Lack of physical access to care/lack of facilities
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
The biggest problem is that the organ donation law is still not implemented in Egypt, hence there are no systems available that will help with the matching of organs or raising awareness about donating one's organs, hence the efficiency of this law once it is passed will not be as strong as we wish it to be.
How are you growing the impact of your organization or initiative?
Please select up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Other (please specify below)
SECONDARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
TERTIARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
Reaching out to the part of the demographic within our immediate reach, i.e. Cairo. Due to restricted funds, expansion beyond Cairo would be improbable.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
NGOs/Nonprofits, Academia/universities.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
The NGOs have offered their experience and their connections with setting up of the organization. The University hospitals and professors provided tangible help by providing space for work and doctors to help with the organization's projects.
 | 35 weeks agoRajia Ragab updated this Competition Entry. |
| 35 weeks agoRajia Ragab updated this Competition Entry. |
| 36 weeks agoRajia Ragab updated this Competition Entry. |
| 37 weeks agoRajia Ragab submitted this idea. |
