Organ Donor Awareness Campaign

Organ donation has become pretty prominent in the media recently with the death of liver transplant recipient, Claire Murray.

Despite the controversial circumstances surrounding Claire, organ donation has once again been brought to our attention.

My ideas/strategies towards the college students would be mostly emotionally triggered. My late mum had a favourite quote, “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve”
The need for organ donation is easily ignored when it doesn’t have an impact on our personal lives. We go from day to day hoping it isn’t something we or our close family and friends will ever require.

Here are 5 strategies I would consider using:

1. Getting a group of donor recipients to come to the college to talk about how receiving a transplant has saved and changed their lives. I would use this opportunity to have donor forms given out, with extras for friends and family. Word of mouth is powerful advertising, and if u touch the student you will touch the lives of those important to them.

2. When I was in Berlin I visited the Jewish History Museum. One part of the exhibition that stood out was a collection of small metal coin-like heads. These represented the number of Jews that were killed in the holocaust. It was simple, but had a huge impact. I would use something similar to either represent the number of people in need of a transplant, or those still waiting. I would use something like cardboard or cloth hearts or faces.

3. Utilising the college website banner, reminding students to sign up and link them to somewhere this can be done online. I would consider having a young child or perhaps a parent with children, as the ‘face’ of the campaign and have them on the banner.

4. A display stand with information, brochures and a donation tin. I would sell cloth hearts, similar to those given to my son when his friend Sofia was murdered. We still keep that heart as a reminder of her precious life.

5. A tree set up in the entrance of the college. This would be a ‘tree of life’. When each student shows evidence of being signed up as an organ donor, he/she places a heart on the tree, or something else symbolic.


Even though the campaign is aimed at all organs for transplants, I would use the ‘heart’ as the main symbol to capture the emotional side of the quest, as well as remind people of one of the organs they would be donating.

picture from http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l244/DDA_04/Berlin/jewish_museum3.jpg