Surrey student works to recruit diverse group of blood donors

Joban Bal is 19, with a bright, open smile and a demeanour that seems beyond his years. He spent most of the day Wednesday standing in the sleet at the corner of Dunsmuir and Burrard waving down cars and passersby, encouraging them to visit a blood-donor clinic around the corner.

For Bal, working to bring new blood — ethnically diverse blood — to Canadian Blood Services has become something of an obsession, both literally and figuratively.

The University of B.C. biology student has volunteered countless hours in support of blood-donor clinics since he was first commandeered to help with a blood-donor drive at his school, Surrey’s Tamanawis Secondary, in Grade 10.

“At the time I was too young to donate, so it would be me asking other people, ‘Could you donate blood?’ ”

The peer-to-peer conversation, with seniors in his high school, helped him grow as a person, he said. Asking people to donate blood seemed personal. “I started to engage more in conversation with strangers, but they weren’t strangers by the end of the conversation,” he said.

Five years later, he’s still recruiting friends, peers and strangers to donate blood, hosting clinics and events aimed at educating the public. Two years ago he founded the One Blood for Life foundation, which uses social media (see @onebloodforlife on Instagram) to engage youth through community events to recruit blood donors and add people to the Canadian Blood Services stem-cell registry.

Part of One Blood for Life’s mandate is to recruit younger donors who are more ethnically diverse.

“There is a great need for ethnic diversity in the stem-cell registry. The registry is primarily Caucasian and that doesn’t reflect Canada’s diversity,” he said.

“For patients of mixed ethnicities it’s really difficult to find a match for stem cells.”

Bal, who was born in Canada but speaks fluent Punjabi, discovered the challenge to recruiting in his own community had a lot to do with communication.

“I saw in my community a disconnect, culturally and through language barriers, where people might not know how blood donation works or what the process was. Some of them were avid donors, but I saw opportunity at various cultural events to promote the message.”

When Bal spoke in Punjabi, people listened, the message spread and Bal said, “We would have tents set up and have a rush all day long. People were willing to help, but they hadn’t had the right channel.”