Singapore Red Cross targets youths

Singapore Red Cross (SRC) has launched a new campaign called ‘Blood Ties’ –that seeks to recruit more youths for its latest blood donation drive.The campaign profiles youths as catalysts of positive change, leveraging their ‘ties’ to inspire their circle of influence to donate blood. Drawing on the selfie trend, the campaign encourages youths to be part of the movement by declaring their passion – be it blogging, music, photography, acting, football or stand-up comedy – through a ‘selfie’.They will then upload these ‘selfies’ onto their respective social media channels, with the following hashtags: #bloodties #(state your passion here)inmyblood #sgredcross #ydcsg, as well as the details of the event to encourage their friends and followers to be part of the cause and save lives by donating their blood at ‘Blood Ties’. The crowdsourcing initiative is aimed at blood donation.In order to engage more youth to become regular blood donors, ‘Blood Ties’ engages local celebrities and influencers to front the campaign. The list includes musicians The Sam Willows, AJ’s, Inch Chua and Nathan Hartono, entertainers Fadhlur Rahman, Divian Nair and Dee Kosh, comedian Rishi Budhrani, bloggers Peggy Chang, Victoria Cheng and Silver Ang – some of whom will be donating their blood at ‘Blood Ties’.Here's what the campaign looks like: [gallery link="file" ids="58105,58106,58107,58108"]“Singapore is faced with an ageing population and an increase demand of blood. We need to attract more young donors to give regularly so as to maintain a sustainable blood supply,” said Benjamin William, secretary general/ CEO of the Singapore Red Cross.He added that today, youth blood donors make up 31% - a significant part of the donor population and the Red Cross aims to increase that to 35%.“The great thing about ‘Blood Ties’ is that, rather than a top-down approach, it allows youth to be ambassadors of this campaign. We aim to catalyse a new wave of blood donors, and we hope that ‘Blood Ties’ will also spur similar events in the future,” Dan Gibson, group managing director, Havas Worldwide Singapore said.