It’s Take Two for Organ Health Campaign

An award-winning nurse and a community group have joined forces once again to launch an organ donation campaign that is directed towards the South Asian community.

Angela Ditchfield, a Specialist Organ Donation Nurse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, received the Mary Seacole Leadership Award 2014 for her work with black and minority ethnic communities.

As part of the award, Angela produced a campaign earlier this year, ‘It’s About Time,’ aimed at the local communities of Blackburn, with the help of community group One Voice.

A campaign video for ‘It’s About Time 2’ (IAT2) will now be produced in Urdu, specifically targeting those members of the local community for whom English is not a first language.

Angela said,

Through my work I have seen the amazing power of organ donation.

This was manifested so wonderfully in the ‘It’s About Time’ campaign.

The main goal of the initial campaign was to raise awareness of organ donation in the local BME community of Blackburn and Darwen and to induce the conversation of this important subject by the young members of the community.

We were thrilled to learn that many people joined the organ donor list as a result of the campaign.

We held a focus group gathering feedback. As a result of the engagement work, we have decided to launch a version of the campaign in Urdu, appealing to those communities that we were unable to reach before.

Even if one person’s life has been saved by organ donation, we know the campaign has been worthwhile.

Zaffer Khan from One Voice, who will direct the short film, said,

We need to address myths and misconceptions around organ donation through education and meaningful community engagement as part of the Baiter Sehat campaign.

The need for an organ transplant can affect any one of us. No community is immune. It’s important for all communities to be part of the solution to stop preventable deaths by starting the debate on organ donation.

The first video was aimed at the younger elements of the BME community in Blackburn. IAT2 will look to engage the older members of the community.

Sadia Rafiq received a kidney transplant in July 2013 and she will be appearing in the video.

I am very lucky to have had a transplant. If I did not have a transplant I would still be on a dialysis machine for eight hours a day, seven days a week. I was depressed and degraded waiting for so long. This is a fantastic project and I am so pleased to be a part of it. It can change lives. It changed mine.

IAT2 is an East Lancashire Hospitals Trust and One Voice (Baiter Sehat with Blackburn with Darwen Council) Project.

The new campaign video will officially be launched at the One Voice Annual Dinner on 27 February 2016.