Welsh Blood Service calls for ‘Young Blood’ to join its community of lifesavers

The Welsh Blood Service is calling for a new generation of blood donors across Wales with the launch of its ‘Gwaed Ifanc/Young Blood’ community partnerships campaign.

The Gwaed Ifanc campaign aims to encourage students and young people to become blood donors and join the Welsh Blood Service’s stem cell registry, as well as encouraging schools and colleges to play a pivotal role in engaging younger generations.

The Welsh Blood Service collects roughly 100,000 blood donations every year to meet demand across the 19 hospitals it serves in Wales.

It is vital that more young people begin their blood donation journeys to ensure the Service can continue to meet demand.

Each donation has the potential to save up to three lives by supporting a range of treatments, from helping recovering accident victims and patients with blood cancers, to supporting mothers and newborn babies during childbirth.

The Welsh Blood Service has already been working with schools across Wales for a number of years, with many hosting their own blood donation sessions for students and staff, promoting local community sessions, or hosting stem cell swab drives. The Gwaed Ifanc campaign aims to build on these strong relationships by reaching out to schools with sixth forms and colleges across Wales to be a part of this exciting new community partnership.

The Welsh Blood Service also aims to recruit more than 6,000 people aged 16-30 and 16 to-45 from black, Asian, mixed or minority ethnic backgrounds to its stem cell registry every year. Currently, around 2,000 people in the UK require a stem cell transplant each year. Three in ten patients won’t find a match and that rises to seven in ten for patients from a black, Asian, mixed or minority ethnic background.

Susan Adams, Sixth Form Coordinator at Ysgol Stanwell School, said: “The blood donation sessions we host at Stanwell are always a highlight in the school calendar, both for students and staff.

“It is vitally important to us as a school that we encourage young people to become blood donors and save lives, to make a difference to our community and patients in need.”

Prestatyn High School in North Wales hosted its first donation session in October 2024 and is already looking forward to the next one.

Kirsty Garside, Head of Social Studies, at Prestatyn High School, said: “We’ve wanted to support an initiative that encourages ‘giving’ for quite some time, and supporting the Welsh Blood Service by hosting our first donation session felt like the perfect way to do that.

“It was heartwarming to see so many of our students step forward to donate blood for the first time and join the stem cell registry, as well as the pride they felt afterwards. We’re delighted to support the Gwaed Ifanc campaign and encourage every secondary school and further education setting in Wales to get behind it.”

Director of the Welsh Blood Service, Alan Prosser, said: “Young people are the future of the Welsh Blood Service.

“Schools and colleges play a vital role in helping us to engage young people in blood donation and our stem cell registry. Donors often tell us they would’ve started donating blood a lot earlier had their school hosted sessions.

“Gwaed Ifanc is an important campaign for the Welsh Blood Service as we embark on a bid to encourage more young people to begin their blood donation journeys and save lives.”

To find out how your school or college can support the Welsh Blood Service, visit the Young Blood page.