Thirty-three-year-old Kiran Verma has a goal in life: to decrease the number of deaths due to blood shortage to Zero by 2025 . For this, he is voluntarily travelling 15,000 km across India, Nepal, and Bhutan to encourage and spread awareness about blood donation. Verma, who founded ‘Simply Blood’-a blood donation platform- reached the state capital on Wednesday.
Talking to the media, Verma said his journey began from Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Jan 26 this year. Till now, he has travelled more than 8,500-km- which includes 3,000 km by walking- in last 3 months.
Verma added that every day more than 12,000 people die in India due to lack of availability of blood and his mission is to encourage at least 10 people every kilometre to take a pledge to donate blood at least once in their life. If this happens, he claimed, then his 15,000-km journey is going to save at least 1,50,000 potential lives through blood donation.
“I started ‘Simply Blood’ when my own blood was sold to a poor family in Delhi. I left my job and took this as my goal- to decrease the number of deaths due to blood shortage to Zero by 2025. My life’s mission is to save 1 million lives through blood donation by 2020 using ‘Simply Blood’ platform,” he said, adding that ‘Simply Blood’ is world’s first virtual blood donation platform and first social media platform, an initiative by Change With One Foundation.