A passionate young 'leader' in the volunteer movement to promote blood donation.

Photo caption — Mr. Pham Tuan Vu participates in blood donation. Photo: VNA

During his 10 years of volunteering, Vu has encouraged over 2,000 people to donate blood, and he himself donates blood 1-2 times a year.

"Leader" leads the movement

With a natural aptitude for youth union and association activities, even as a student, Pham Tuan Vu enthusiastically joined various talent and hobby clubs and became involved with the Hai Duong Youth Blood Donation Club from its early years.

From a volunteer completely unfamiliar with blood donation, Vu quickly learned and fell in love with the work. In the environment of the Club, Vu's philanthropic spirit flourished. His knowledge, organizational skills, youthful enthusiasm, and sense of responsibility and exemplary conduct easily caught the attention of the senior members and founders of the Club. Inevitably, Vu officially became the Club's Chairman in 2019.

After spending his student life studying late into the night and tirelessly organizing activities with the Association, the young man graduated and started working. His job is busy, and he now has a family, but his passion for volunteer work remains ever fresh.

The Hai Duong Youth Blood Donation Club currently has over 200 members, mostly students from colleges and universities. As the club's leader, Vu places great emphasis on training volunteers in knowledge and skills.

Huyen Trang, a former student of Hai Duong Medical Technical University, said: “My friends and I are very impressed and admire Mr. Vu for his knowledge and sense of responsibility in every task and activity, and for the care he shows to the members. Thanks to participating in the Club, we have become more confident and learned many useful skills in our studies and lives.”

Taking on the role of "captain" of the Club, and with the concern of how to inherit what the founding members had built, Pham Tuan Vu was determined to learn from his teammates in the community of blood donation clubs across the country.

Vu explored and applied technology to his work to innovate the way the club's activities were carried out. In 2021, Vu established a Zalo group for blood donors. Over the past four years, the group has proven effective in receiving information and proactively providing blood for emergency situations when demand is high.

Vu vividly remembers an incident from the summer, during the COVID-19 outbreak in Hai Duong (formerly). Late at night, Vu's phone rang. He learned that the Hai Duong Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital had a pregnant woman urgently needing blood. He tried contacting the group, but no one could help because the patient had a rare blood type. He then posted the information on the club's Facebook page. "At that time, I didn't have much hope, but luckily, a woman living about 20km from the Hai Duong Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital read the message and contacted us. She came all the way to the hospital to donate blood, saving the pregnant woman's life in time," Vu recounted.

That event became a turning point that led Vu to immediately come up with the idea of establishing the "Living Blood Bank" group. To date, the group has over 300 members from all professions and age groups, and when there is information about a case needing blood, they immediately announce it within the group. Thanks to this initiative, many emergency patients needing blood transfusions have been saved.

Currently, the Club has intensified its activities across all social media platforms. Statistics show that the majority of blood donors are between 18 and 35 years old. Recognizing that the target group for blood donation is young people, the Club operates with the motto: wherever there are young people, there will be blood donation volunteers. To date, the Club has a fan page, TikTok, Zalo, and YouTube account that regularly posts information and interacts with and answers questions from those interested in blood donation.

From 2022 to 2024, Vu directly participated in organizing annual blood donation programs such as: the April Summer Blood Donation Day, the September Golden Autumn Blood Donation Day, and the Tet Blood Donation Day. As a result, these programs collected 2,000 units of blood.

According to the assessment of the Hai Phong City Red Cross Society, the Club has been a key supporting force for many years in directly mobilizing and caring for blood donors in the local Red Journey blood donation programs.

I want to give more...

For young leader Pham Tuan Vu, joy is measured by the number of blood donation programs, awareness-raising activities, and changes in community behavior regarding blood donation, as well as by the growth of volunteers and the happiness of many patients who received timely blood donations.

Besides promoting blood donation, the Club has also organized many meaningful activities for the community. Vu and the Club have promoted the movement of showing gratitude and helping the poor. From 2023 to the present, the club has mobilized resources to distribute more than 600 gifts to disadvantaged people inside and outside the province.

Limited funding is a perennial problem for most volunteer clubs. Necessity is the mother of invention, and Vu and the club's leadership team came up with the idea of selling trays of pre-cut fruit to raise funds for their activities. When implemented, the members enthusiastically supported the initiative, and it has been maintained for several consecutive years.

To boost the morale of the volunteers, the young leader came up with the idea of cleverly collaborating with several brands and businesses to secure sponsorship. Whenever a blood donation event was organized, Vu and the Club's Steering Committee would meet with representatives from the businesses and organizations to propose ideas. Thanks to this, the club received small but heartwarming gifts for the volunteers and blood donors.

Vu shared that the current challenge in blood donation campaigns is keeping up with the mindset and thinking of young people. The blood donation awareness movement needs to be innovative and in sync with the youth. Based on this, Vu is planning to advise and propose to the authorities the organization of large-scale activities, inviting influential figures among young people to participate. The knowledge and skills of those involved in blood donation, combined with the influence of celebrities, will create a powerful force to encourage the community, especially young people, to naturally care about and participate in blood donation.

Sharing his plans for the next stage of his volunteer journey, Vu said he is working with the Club's Steering Committee to develop a project to establish a permanent blood donation center at Hai Duong General Hospital, addressing the community's regular blood donation needs.

In the new context following the merger of Hai Phong and Hai Duong and the new two-tiered government model, Vu harbored the intention of re-establishing coordination at the commune and ward levels. In the future, the club aims to build grassroots organizations and teams. This would integrate blood donation campaigns with various activities at the commune and ward levels, becoming a regular part of community life and laying the groundwork for more uniform and sustainable blood donation activities across localities.

Chairman of the Hai Phong City Red Cross Society, Bui Manh Phuc, commented that Pham Tuan Vu is one of the most active club leaders in promoting blood donation, making important contributions to the success of blood donation programs in particular and the overall results of blood donation campaigns in West Hai Phong (formerly Hai Duong) over the years.

Vu also participates effectively in social work and community activities. The City Red Cross is developing a plan to implement a project to raise awareness about food waste prevention in the western part of Hai Phong. This is a very important project that the Red Cross will focus on in the coming time to contribute to raising awareness among people and businesses about the importance of saving food, contributing to environmental protection and combating climate change. The Red Cross will assign Vu and the Club to be the core implementing force for this project in the western area, with the belief that Vu will continue to utilize his abilities and enthusiasm to contribute even more to community activities in the future.

For his outstanding contributions to the voluntary blood donation movement, Pham Tuan Vu was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Steering Committee for Voluntary Blood Donation of Hai Duong Province (formerly); a Certificate of Merit from the Central Committee of the Vietnam Youth Union; a Certificate of Commendation from the Director of the Central Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion; and a Certificate of Merit from the Central Committee of the Vietnam Red Cross Society.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/xa-hoi/thu-linhtre-nhiet-huyet-voi-phong-trao-tinh-nguyen-van-dong-hien-mau-20251214082702138.htm