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For our project we had to create infographic posters for Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) to help raise awareness.

Many Singaporeans believe myths about bone marrow donation such as bone marrow is taken from the bone or the process is painful and may lead to future injuries. Through this project we were able to debunk these myths for ourselves as well as the public.

Instagram: @sajcxbmdp

Senchia:

My class was tasked to help come up with posters to encourage people to sign up as bone marrow donors through instagram publicity. With the help of my fellow SLEAD Activist and the core group leaders, we were able to carry out the project very smoothly. When we were tasked to work with BMDP, we didn't know much about them. But with numerous meetings and research, we learnt that BMDP needed more donors to come forward to help patients in need and we could help them garner more support through our project. I learnt many new things about bone marrow donation and was happy to debunk many of the myths Singaporeans might have about the process. My group was tasked to come up with posters for the sign up process. Personally I am not a creative person. However, through brainstorming ideas for the designs with my group, I was able to be a little more creative and loose. Over the course of the project we came across many issues that were technical or admin. But we were able to troubleshoot it quickly and solve it almost immediately with the help of the other core leaders. This experience really helped me to nurture my leadership skills where I had to work well under pressure and delegate tasks effectively and efficiently. From what we have learnt, many of my classmates, including me, have agreed to becoming pledgers. I am glad to have been part of this meaningful project.

Leo:

In our project, we had to create Instagram infographic posts to help raise awareness about the Bone Marrow Donation Programme. I was the group leader for the post on past donor and patient stories. We researched on past donor and patient stories for a few days before designing and completing the pictures required for the Instagram post. After completing the post, we uploaded the post together with the other posts from other groups to an Instagram account our class created, called @sajcxbmdp. Before embarking on this project, I did not know much about bone marrow donation. In fact, I never knew that there was such a thing as bone marrow donation and I never knew that it was so important to the body. From this project, I’ve learnt so much about it. I actually had the impression that bone marrow donation involved a very complicated operation where doctors had to cut through bones of donors or something to that extent. However, what amazed me is that the process actually is really not that complicated and it is really not that invasive. This project is a big eye opener for me and I am truly glad to be a part of this meaningful project.

Jabez:

As SLEAD activist, I, along with my SLEAD activist were responsible for choosing our project, and we decided on the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP), specifically in the area of poster designs for my class to raise awareness and encourage others to sign up as Bone Marrow Donors and save the lives of those afflicted with blood disorders such as Leukemia and Lymphoma.

My group was assigned the portion of “What happens during Bone Marrow Donation” and we had to research the process of the transplant.

Some things I found challenging was ensuring that the deadlines were met for the posters, delegating the work to people I could trust, learning more about a totally foriegn subject and holding my classmates accountable for their work. However, with enough resilience and through the help of my peers particularly the other core leaders, we were able to successfully accomplish designing all our posters by deadline and were able to raise pledges for the organization.

I learned a great deal throughout this service learning experience, particularly the importance of collaboration and cooperation between individuals and the benefits of the exchange of ideas between our peers can drastically improve the end product, as well as picking out the strengths and weaknesses of our classmates in assigning work.

Jordan:

We created publicity posts to help publicise the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) to help raise awareness on bone marrow donation, in hope to get more signatories and pledges to become bone marrow donors as the lack of bone marrow donors is a serious issue in Singapore. I worked on the starting posts for our class, which was on ‘What is bone marrow?’ and ‘Why is it in demand?’. Working on these posts helped expose me to what bone marrow is (not actually knowing what it was prior) and helped open me up to this new world of bone marrow donors and their stories. Through this, I also understand the seriousness and the repercussions of the lack of bone marrow donors (thus explaining why there is a strong need for this). Upon learning about this, I have pledged to become a bone marrow donor as I have not turned 18 yet.

Yan Zhen:

Our project consisted of coming up with posts to be posted on instagram so as to help people recognise the need for bone marrow donations in Singapore. Information including, what bone marrow is and stories from past donors etc is present in our posts and this was done efficiently by splitting our class into different groups to work on different research areas. Each group had to research and work on the information which was going to be up on Instagram. Our posts served to encourage people including people aged 18 and below to pledge as donors, and people aged 18 and above to donate their bone marrow. We believe that using social media would be a good way to reach out to a wider audience so that more people would understand the importance of bone marrow donation. Through this project, I learnt that many people are actually in need of bone marrow. The chances of getting a match is relatively low, and this is the reason why more bone marrow donors are needed, which is, to help even more people whose life depends on these donations. More importantly, I learnt that we can all do our part to help by donating our bone marrow. Even by being pledgers, we can give hope to the people in need of bone marrow and this would be able make a difference in their lives.