Muks Rabadia, a member of the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Kingsbury, shares the remarkable work he has been doing since the age of 18 to promote blood, organ, and stem cell donation within his community.
Muks’ blood donation journey started when he was passing a temporary donor centre on his way home from college, with one of his friends. Intrigued by the people entering, Muks decided to follow those who were going in. He decided to donate blood for the first time as he saw it wasn’t difficult to do and left the venue wondering why more people weren’t doing this?
Muks also shared that in the Hindu Swaminarayan community, one of the tenants is to perform charitable acts. Being an integral part of this community, Muks wondered, what better charitable act than to give the gift of life? And so he decided to organise blood donation sessions at his local temple in Golders Green, which has since moved to Kingsbury, in hopes to inspire more members of his community to participate in blood donation.
Muks went on to explain, that the spiritual leader for Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Kingsbury, Acharya Purushottam Priyadasji Swamishree Maharaj, helped to dispel a lot of myths surrounding organ and blood donation within the Hindu community, citing his message of “the act of giving blood is more superior than giving money as blood can’t be produced in any factories. It’s the anonymous gift of life.”
As a result, the sessions held at the temple continue to attract new donors across all faiths, with over 100 people attending each of the 6 sessions hosted there each year. Alongside this, the temple has also held organ donation and stem cell sign up sessions, which have introduced a skyrocketing number of donors on to the list.
One of the rarest blood types B- and B+ have a national average of 8%, but at the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, Kingsbury there is an average of 27% of donors who hold these blood types, creating a massive positive impact on the blood stocks.
Muks extended family, many of whom hold the rare B- and B+ blood, have all decided to help and support blood donation and his children are already eagerly asking if they can donate their blood when they are older as they see how important it is.
To recognise his incredible achievements and service to the community, Muks was awarded the ‘Volunteer of the Year’ Award by the NHS Blood and Transplant Service.
Upon receipt of this award, Muks said: “It felt really nice to be acknowledged for my contributions and it’s been amazing to see the success of the sessions I have helped to organise”.
Now on his 84th donation, Muks is looking forward to reaching the 100 donation milestone, so that he car wear his pin badge with pride!
If you are interested in becoming an organ or blood donor or would like to sign up to the stem cell register ways in which you can do this can be found via these links: Organ donation, Blood donation, and Stem Cell Donation.