Each year, many people in Cambodia need blood transfusions for dengue hemorrhagic fever, landmine accidents, and hemorrhages during labor. According the National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) statistics, only around 20,000 units of blood are donated every year in Cambodia, which only meets one third of the monthly requirement in the country.

Facing this critical need for blood, the Cambodian Red Cross considers it an obligation to try to increase the number of voluntary and non-remunerative blood donors. The CRC Blood Donor Recruitment Program (BDR) started as a one year pilot program in 2002 with technical and financial assistance from KNRC.

The KNRC provided the technical and financial assistances to support the CRC- Blood Donor Recruitment (BDR) Pilot Project for a period of one year starting from July 2002 to June 2003. The BDR project agreements, between MoH & CRC, CRC & KNRC, were been signed. This project was implemented in two target areas, in Phnom Penh Municipality and Battambang province. It was implemented in collaboration with the National Blood Transfusion Center/Ministry of Health (NBTC/MoH), the World Health Organization (WHO), and IFRC as well as, with target groups, relevant ministries and some NGOs/UN agencies.


GOALS
To promote humanitarian activities and develop Blood Donor Recruitment (BDR) systems in target areas ofPhnom Penh and Battembang Province.


OBJECTIVE
To increase the number of blood donors (voluntary blood donors).


ACTIVITIES
The KNRC provided 80,000.00 USD to support CRC-BDR pilot project. CRC-BDR team was able to manage activities such as: Workshop Organizing, IEC/PR Materials Development and diseminated to target groups, Setting up the Reward System, Target Group Database, BDR Promotional activities targeting various groups (High Schools, Professional schools, Universities/ Faculties, NGOs etc), Pre-donation campaigns through RCYs, Exemplary blood donations, BDR promotion through mass media, Trust building activities, Intersectional coordination, Constitutional background with NBTC, RCY/RCV training, BDR system establishment, Training material development, staff capacity building and Regular follow up and monitoring of branch as well as external evaluation of the pilot project.

The BDR project initiated from July 2002 until 30 June 2003 showed good results: 2,799 external blood donors donated blood through mobile team unit in Phnom Penh and 1,362 external blood donors donated blood in Battambang Province. This data showed that the BDR project was successful in achieving its goals and objectives. When the statistics were compared to the previous year, it was found that the number of non-remunerated blood donor was increased significantly. This meant that the impact of BDR messages on the target groups was understood and gradually gained acceptance, reaching the general public.

Reflecting on an external evaluation report of the BDR pilot project from July 2002 - June 2003,
the KNRC decided to provide 125,000.00 USD to support CRC - BDR project for another 2 years starting from August 2003 until July 2005. A BDR project agreement was recently signed between CRC, KNRC and the Federation on 22nd September 2003.

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