Hyderabad: Pandemic turns city youth a life-saver
Green Again founder Mahesh Talari seen on right to Cyberabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar at a programme jointly taken up with the police.
"Community service gives a valuable opportunity to walk into a different community that is less familiar to me but is just as colourful and, most importantly, in need." The statement perfectly fits the mission of social activist Mahesh Talari. During the pandemic, he came across a pressing need and thus was born oof it his plasma donation campaign.
About 55% of our blood is plasma, and the remaining 45% are red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets that are suspended in the plasma. Those who have fully recovered from COVID-19 can help others by donating plasma which helps in speedy recovery and saves lives.
Talari,28, who runs a Green Again startup, has helped around 200 patients with plasma donation and also conducted blood donation camps during the lockdown and managed to collect almost 12,000 units of blood.
"Finding plasma donors for Covid patient was a major challenge. Due to fear of side-effects of donating plasma, many were not coming forward. So I took up a campaign and reached out to people though Facebook." He roped in blood banks for the purpose.
The Good Samaritan started the plasma camp in June last year with the help of police. Soon, requests started pouring in from people in great need of plasma therapy.
Sharing his journey, Talari said, "My father passed away in my childhood and my mother became the sarpanch of Turkapally and seeing her public service closely, even I wanted to work for people. In 2015, I started coordinating with volunteers and have since been conducting blood donation camps.
Slowly I extended my journey in social work field by coordinating with various NGOs and blood banks to specifically provide blood to Thalassemia patients who need consistent transfusions."
During the lockdown when the city came to a standstill, there were no blood camps being organised, and it was when people like Talari, with the help of police, swung into action and ran blood donation camps. "I collected almost 12,000 units of blood from various parts of the city till date," added Mahesh.