A Tweet and a Like to Save a Life

Read how a 25 year old Kenyan built an online database of blood donors and is using Twitter and instant messaging to connect mothers and babies in critical need with life saving supplies.

'Tunaomba Serikali...' The popular phrase is the bane of modern Kenyan society. Swahili for 'we are asking the government…'

This phrase is part of what creates a system of dependency among Kenya's 75% population under 30.

Not for Evans Muriu. The Nairobi entrepreneur in his mid twenties started with a laptop, a cellphone and a passion for young people he set up Kuna Vijana (Swahili for There are Youth). An organisation he started in 2008 with the aim of earning Kenyan youth a reputation by fully tapping into and exposing their talent.

And besides the 12,000-strong network he's slowly created there, one of his initiatives in particular has had Kenyan and PanAfrican impact in under a year. 'Wanadamu' is Swahili for 'human beings' and yet if you split the word and translate it further e.g. 'wana' and 'damu' it can be written as 'We have blood'. This was the name Evans used to create what is one of East Africa's leading case studies in social media for social good.

Armed initially with a laptop, a cellphone and the intent of creating a database of donors, Evans set out to recruit donors using Twitter and Facebook. Said Evans,

I did not start Wanadamu because I or someone I know ever needed blood at one point or another. I just wanted to make sure no other life was lost before its time because a patient couldn’t get any or enough blood on time.

Beginning on the 4th of July 2011, he's since been able to answer over 300 appeals from across Kenya - cities, suburbs, outskirts and small towns alike. An interesting fact behind his growing database of over 7, 800 people is that more than half of them were recruited in-person and offline at events and places where Evans would sign people up.

Evans recalls a critcal moment for Wanadamu.

"We once responded to an appeal in (remote) Kitui. The contact person called and was desperate. He was even willing to pay for a taxi for people from Nairobi to go donate. He also said he was willing to pay an additional Ksh. 4,000 ($45) per pint for the 7 pints needed to Wanadamu."

Evans told him that Wanadamu's services were free and that the money he wanted to pay for blood wouldn’t be necessary. With donors already based in Kitui, all donations were made within 2 hours with no need for a cab or payment. Evans follows up each donation with thank you cards and families and loved ones reciprocate by sharing progress reports.

For the hundreds of people helped and the thousands touched by Evans Muriu his challenge remains simple. Use the power of crowdsourcing to get the Kenyan social web and youth to address one of the developing world's leading challenges - blood donation. He stands tall for his simple bottom-up approach, educating communities on what it means to take collective action, impacting young people and creating a generation of regular blood donors. He plans to roll this out to every county in Kenya and further afield and is open to hearing from organisations and potential partners on this.

Evans Muriu is a hero and we celebrate the work he's doing at Wanadamu to transform the lives of people young and old across Kenya and the continent.

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