Brief
Finding blood donors in a case of an emergency is a very hard task, it's even more so when your blood type is not very common. Such is the case for the O negative blood type: only 5% of Guatemala's population belong to that type.
When you add the fact that people usually look for blood donors AFTER the moment the blood is needed it usually turns into a desperate race against the clock where the suppliers are extremely limited.
World Blood Drive invited people to share their blood type and their location in a hashtag, generating a "universal blood bank" with enough data of possible blood donors and facilitating the research in a case of an emergency.
According to the “Ministerio de Salud Pública de Guatemala” (Public Health Ministry of Guatemala), the chances to find blood with the hashtag increased 43% more than other methods.
Execution
The biggest problem for blood banks is the lack of donors in cases of emergency: they almost never meet the required quota of donors needed for hard to find blood types.
So instead of rushing to find donors after we needed them, we chose to create a "universal blood bank" beforehand via one of the biggest and more direct ways to contact people: Twitter and a simple hashtag: #onegative (or the blood type of people who wished to become possible donors).
Outcome
The city supported the project implementing it in the blood banks across the country.
According to the “Ministerio de Salud Pública de Guatemala” (Public Health Ministry of Guatemala),
the chances to find blood with the hashtag increased 43% more than other methods.
