Posted by Haagen P. Cumlet

The Safe Blood Africa Project (SBA) has since its start in 2004 by Carmel Valley Rotary Club in California, District 5230, provided 14 blood storage refrigerators and generators to publicly owned community hospitals in Nigeria. The project is now "reaching the point ...  where ....  an administrative support person" may be needed, according to project chairman Brian J. Golden. In 2007, the Safe Blood Africa project won a Rotary International Best Cooperative Projects Award for its accomplishments.

Over the years, the Safe Blood Africa project has been profiled by Rotarian publications as well as newspapers, radio and television stations in both Nigeria and the US. Its founder, Warren Kaufman, was among speakers at the Rotary International Day conference in the UN Headquarters in New York in 2006. Hefirst became acquainted with the enormous problem posed by lack of safe blood in Nigeria as a team leader for a Group Study Exchange team in 2002. 

The cost for the blood bank package is about 22,000 Dollars, which covers: A blood storage refrigerator with a back-up generator, consumable supplies and training materials for safe blood handling and assistance in establishing voluntary blood donor programs to hospitals selected and vetted by Nigerian Rotary Clubs.

Each blood bank is funded through a matching grant partnership that includes one or  more Rotary clubs in the U.S., a Nigerian club, the Rotary districts the clubs belong to, and the Rotary Foundation.

"Participation by Rotary clubs in other   countries is  encouraged, with Japanese clubs having recently contributed," Bryan Golden says.  In addition, "We're using Rotary credibility to reach out to the larger NGO market for funds," Warren Kaufmann told the July 2008 issue of Rotary World of the future of the project.

The project founder points out, that "the Rotary system of matching grants makes participation in the program affordable for most clubs." When the donor club(s) raises 6,000 Dollars, the district governor(s) can then contribute 6,000 Dollars in District Designated Funds (DDF is the district portion of Rotary Foundation contributions). The four Rotary districts in Nigeria contribute 100 Dollars as District Designated Funds.  The total is then matched by the Rotary Foundation in the amount of 12,100 Dollars, making 24,200 Dollars available.

Warren Kaufman and other members of the SBA team have been present with an exhibition booth in the House of Friendship at several Rotary International   conventions.  After the 2008 Los Angeles Convention, not far from his home in Carmel Valley, he and the SBA Board privately hosted project meetings with Rotarian members from Nigeria. Currently, Carmel Valley Rotary Clubhas some 50 members. 

According to Bryan Golden, the project is now "reaching the point in the evolution ... where the volunteer staff can no longer provide adequate support for ongoing activities." He tells ourblooddrive.org that the  "next goal, now a pressing one, is to secure a modest amount of continuing financial support to enable the hiring of an administrative support person, and to pay for the not inconsequential expenses that the volunteers, especially Warren, have been shouldering out of pocket."

The  project's Board of Directors - all volunteer members of the Carmel Valley Rotary Club - "provides strategic direction for the enterprise and oversees development of marketing communications, public relations, participation in a variety of marketing activities, procurement and logistics activities including delivery, installation and startup of the equipment, and of course, the all important fund raising activities."

The Safe Blood Africa project has established the following goals and objective:

1) Through the donation of blood storage equipment, SBA and participating Rotary clubs will:

        A) Enable doctors, nurses and other health professionals at publicly owned community    hospitals in Nigeria to save as many as 840 lives per year, mainly women and children, by helping create conditions that improve the availability and safety of blood for emergency care.

       B) Assist the hospitals to establish and sustain voluntary blood donor programs to reduce the use of non-voluntary, purchased blood.

2) Secure funding and supply 10 blood storage refrigerators and generators to qualifying community hospitals in Nigeria each year.

3) Secure funding for, and establish and sustain an educational program in Nigeria for hospital hematology technicians and hospital voluntary blood donor program staff to improve the overall technical capability at the hospital level and to promote and effectively manage voluntary blood donations in the local communities.

4) Initiate SBA programs in other African countries.

Among the Directors is a Nigerian superior court justice and fellow Rotarian, Lord Justice Edemekong Edemekong, whom Warren Kaufman met and befriended during his travel to Nigeria in 2002 as a  Group Study Exchange teamleder.

Project chairman, Bryan Golden, points out, that "SBA is fortunate to have as its technical advisor Dr. John Watson-Williams, an expert in the field of hematology, who is legendary in Africa in hematology circles, and spent many years in Uganda, where he was instrumental in establishing a viable national blood transfusion service and blood bank network, in Nigeria, assisting the government in its efforts to do the same, and elsewhere in Africa.  John continues to be a highly valued and instrumental member of the SBA volunteer team." 

The Safe Blood Africa Project has been given the status of grass roots Rotary "World Community Service Project", supported by Rotary International, the individual Rotary Clubs which are involved, the Nigerian Federal Minister of Health, and the newly formed Nigerian National Blood Transfusion Service (NNBTS). The project is collaborating with the Red Cross in both Nigeria and the USA. 

The project is exempted from some federal taxes in the US as a non-profit organization (501c.(3) .

In addition to the Safe Blood Africa Project in Nigeria, another American project is also underway there, the Safe Blood for Africa Foundation, which is headquartered in Washington D.C. Among major accomplishments, the foundation helped re-establish the Nigerian National Blood Transfusion Service (NNBTS) with a USAAID grant.

Nigeriais the most populous contry in Africa with over 140 million people.

Footnotes: Warren Kaufman can be contacted at the e-mail address wkaufman@safebloold.org and Bryan Goldenat bgolden@safebloodafrica.org

The project's Nigerian Director, Edemekong Edemekong, at the e-mail address edemekong@safebloodafrica.org

Click here to see some of the project's African pictures.(The editor is working on getting more project pictures for the journal PHOTOS).

Clich hereto view another article about the project.

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