On October 28, 2015, MOHAN Foundation was invited to Xoriant Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Sector-34, Gurgaon to conduct an awareness session on organ donation.
Xoriant Corporation is a product development, engineering and consulting services company, serving technology startups as well as mid-size to large size corporations. The session was made possible through the initiative of Bhavana Chhabaria of Shatayu Foundation. It was coordinated by Amita Shital, an employee at Xoriant Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Ms Sonam Choedon started the session by asking the present audience what they knew about organ donation, brain death, etc. She also inquired that how many amongst them have pledged for eye donation. It was found that none amongst them had done so. Further, Sonam apprised them of the present need of organs in India, who all can donate organs, what all organs could be donated. She also explained about brain death, how it is diagnosed and established, brain death committee, etc. And finally, she explained Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994.
The remaining part of the session was conducted by Ms Chaitanya Jonker. She shared the organ donation rates of the world as well as that in India. She also explained them the difference between coma and brain death, the contraindications to organ donation and myths related to organ donation. Special mention to eye donation was given and how each person could contribute towards the cause was stressed upon.
A 5-minute video on brain death was shown when the concept of brain death was being addressed.
The session was quite interactive and in the end, many questions were asked - if the identity of the recipients is revealed to donor family, the strictness of the law, if it is necessary to convince family, etc. Some of the feedback received from the participants is as follows:
" I would like to congratulate you for yesterday's session (Organ Donation Awareness Session). It was very informative and interesting. I really appreciate your efforts for this session. Keep it up."
"Thank you for the fruitful session on Organ Donation Awareness. I am sure this will the stepping stone for encouraging most of the youth towards organ donation.”
There were 40 people in all and 32 donor cards were picked.