Amanda Santos Barbosa is a nursing technician who lives in Maraú, Bahia in Brazil. She came to participate in the Maranatha Youth Convention, and when she learned that one of her actions would be related to the Vida por Vidas (Life for Lives) project, she decided to make her first blood donation.

Professor Rosan Dias de Aguiar lives in a town with 4,000 inhabitants in the south of the same state. In the Adventist church he attends, young people participate in service initiatives. To donate, they have to go to the nearest city, Eunápolis, about three hours away. But distance is not an impediment. “Knowing that you helped, that someone had a better life, or that it was transformed by the blood you donated is very gratifying,” he said.

Just like Barbosa and Dias, dozens of participants from the convention were at the Brasilia blood service facility to help ensure the availability of bags in stock. In Brazil's Federal District alone, the collection unit serves 19 hospitals.

Kelly Barbi is the manager of the catchment area of ​​the Brasilia blood service facility and thanked the Seventh-day Adventist Church for its long-term collaboration through the Life for Lives project. “You have a very good suitability, a healthy lifestyle, and that makes it easier for us, because we manage to convert most of the people who come positively for an effective donation,” she highlighted.

Life for Lives

In 2005, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the Life for Lives project began based on a voluntary initiative promoted by Adventist youth. The project proposed contributing to blood centers through the incentive to donate blood.

In 2006, during the commemorations of World Voluntary Donor Day in Washington, United States, the initiative was honored by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the “Outstanding Campaign of the Pan American Health Organization.” That same year, the project began to be part of the Adventist Church's calendar of official activities in the eight countries of the South American Division (SAD), one of the territories served by the denomination.

In the last 10 years, the campaign contributed more than 1 million 200 thousand bags of blood donated in eight countries in South America.

The original article was published on the South American Division Spanish website.