Raising Awareness, Transplant Kids style!

We often get a lot of emails from people asking "How can we raise awareness about the organ donor register?". We at LLTGL think that there are hundreds of ways you can, and that even the smallest of gestures such as writing a letter to your local newspaper has the potential to change someone's life for the better.

One example of what kind of things you can do to raise awareness relatively easily is the campaign day organized by the awesome Catriona Hamilton, from Transplant Kids to coincide with National Transplant Week. Cat launched Transplant Kids following her experiences with her son's liver and small bowel transplant in May 2000 as a way of providing information, contacts and support to families affected by transplant in words that a child can understand. Because of her personal link with transplants, Cat is a strong advocate of organ donation and we are pleased to be able to share her experiences of putting an awareness-raising day together with relatively little effort

Every year for National Transplant Week, Cat always writes a "Letter to the Editor" with her personal story, and this year got it published in 5 local papers, including this one in the Southern Reporter! Because of the letter, Cat managed to accumulate a few star turns in the media, including local radio stations and her local ITV news.

Cat also had organ donation/awareness raising stands outside her local Tesco's and the Tontine Hotel, which were arranged relatively easily with just a phonecall! To load your stall up with information about organ donation, just head over to UK Transplant, where you can order leaflets, registration forms with donor cards, pens, balloons, logo bugs, sweets and window stickers to remind people how to sign up!

The best thing about an awareness-raising stall is that its the perfect opportunity to get across personal stories about why organ donation matters as well as bust some of those popular myths that surround organ donation. On hand at Cat's stall was her son Aaron who, after battling various health problems, is truly a walking, talking advert for the transformative power of organ donation!