On January 20, 2021, MOHAN Foundation was invited to conduct an interactive session on organ donation for the students (class 8 to 12) from various schools in Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal& Telangana. The inter-state awareness session was initiated by Abhigyata - a student led awareness campaign on organ donation. Ms. Seher Taneja, a student of class 11, Springdales School, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi & Founder of Abhigyata coordinated the session. Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Executive Director, MOHAN Foundation, Delhi-NCR was the speaker.

Abhigyata is an initiative started by Ms. Seher Taneja and Mr. Yonir Jain, student of class 11, Springdales School, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi & Co-Founder of Abhigyata with the intent to offer students an opportunity to receive direct education about organ donation and to equip them with knowledge so that they could initiate family discussion on organ donation. Ms. Seher started ABHIGYATA’- “Be The Rainbow In Someone’s life”, a high school student-to-student awareness campaign on organ donation when she was studying in 8^th standard and her passion for this mission guided her to take this cause further. The session was a result of dedication and hard work of the volunteers, who are working for Abhigyata campaign in schools in various states of India. These young volunteers are very passionate and enthusiastic about the cause and determined to make aware the students as well as society at large about organ donation.

At the beginning of the session, Ms. Seher welcomed all the participants and introduced Ms. Pallavi Kumar. She invited her to begin the session. Before starting the session, Ms. Pallavi asked the audience, why do we need to donate our organs? Many students answered that we need to donate our organs so that we can save someone’s life and organs can also be recycled in order to give other people a second chance to live. Ms. Pallavi explained the basic concepts of organ donation and transplantation with the help of a simple PowerPoint presentation. The following topics were explained in detail: 

• What is organ donation and its need in the society?
• When and how does organ donation take place
• Difference between living and deceased donation
• Brain death
• Difference between brain death and coma
• Contraindications to organ donation
• Role of MOHAN Foundation
• Organ donation - myths and facts
• Eye donation

The students were actively engaged during the presentation and contributed to the discussion. They asked many interesting questions. To name a few: 

• Whose consent is important for corneal donation?
• Whose consent is important for organ donation in case of brain death?
• Can a very old person donate his eyes?
• Is there any disfigurement after eye donation?
• Can a person donate his organs in case of suicide?
• How did you start your journey with MOHAN Foundation? What are your experiences? –Question for Ms. Pallavi Kumar.
• How can volunteers of Abhigyata help in the initiatives of MOHAN Foundation?
• How are organs allocated in the hospitals?
• How are donor organs matched with the recipients?
• Does organ donation change the appearance of our body?
• Do we have to register in a hospital to be an organ donor?

Ms. Pallavi explained the importance of eye donation and the whole process of eye donation. She also explained how one could pledge to be an organ donor. To gauge the knowledge among the students about eye donation, she asked - which part of the eye is removed in eye donation? Many students answered that cornea is removed in eye donation. She encouraged the students to start initiating discussion on eye and organ donation at their homes. She said students can be a strong voice to promote social causes in society.

At the end of the session, Ms. Seher motivated all the participants to initiate conversation on organ donation with their parents and family members and requested them to fill the Family Feedback Forms which they will receive from Abhigyata to gather information on how the family members would react when the topic of organ donation is discussed. Mr. Yonir gave the vote of thanks. He said that the session was very helpful and it was presented in such a simple and unique way that all the participants understood the meaning of organ donation and why it is important.

Feedback from a few students:

The presentation was so informative and I’m sure all the students got to learn a lot from it.

I am in awe of the way you taught about Organ Donation with such ease and created such an impact. All the attendees are sharing about how much they got to learn from the session and are thanking you for the experience.Looking forward to building our association stronger under your able guidance. We would love to be a part of your campaigns in whichever way possible. - Seher Taneja, student of class 11, Springdales School, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi

Thank you for very informative session. I am sure after this session; many of us will initiate conversation on organ donation with our parents. –Yonir Jain, student of class 11, Springdales School Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi

Close to 60 students attended the session.