Hundreds of churchgoers answer the call to donate blood amidst national shortage

More than 600 members of Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Southern Africa answered the call to donate blood on Saturday 28 May 2022 to help ease the national blood shortage. Donations in some cities have started as early as Wednesday with many more churchgoers expressing their desire to help by donating much-needed blood. 

According to Ravi Reddy, the CEO of the South African National Blood Service (SANBS), blood stock levels are currently at a critically low level due to the COVID-19 pandemic that limited access to regular blood drive venues. “We are appealing to the public to please donate much-needed blood.”

In the Western Cape alone the WCBS needs to collect a minimum of 700 units of blood daily to sustain demand in the province. “One unit of blood equals 475ml that is collected from one donor. We always try and ensure a 5-day blood stock supply. Unfortunately, at the moment we are in critical need, and we only have a 1-day supply,” says Marike Gevers, spokesperson for the Western Cape Blood Service (WCBS).

Other provinces of South Africa are experiencing a similar challenge. The shortage caused by the pandemic is said to be worsened by the recent floods, devastation and unrest in some provinces that made it difficult to maintain a steady blood collection and supply.

A church member from Shincheonji in Durban participating in the blood donation drive

Neelashan Govender, a representative of the SANBS in the Durban area, remains hopeful the situation will get better. He lamented the fact that the closure of schools due to holidays, impacts blood stock volume as it is scholars who normally donate in their numbers. Govender emphasized the importance of blood type O – as it can be used for all the other blood types.

With this cry for help, hundreds of members of Shincheonji churches from Cape Town, Gqeberha, Durban, Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg and as far afield as Bafokeng decided to organise a national blood drive. “The church’s desire is to assist and alleviate this burden on the national and local blood service caused by the aftermath of the pandemic. We want to help the community and save lives in this time of shortage,” a spokesperson for the church said.

“I want to help by giving 30-minutes of my time to donate one unit of blood, and hopefully save one or more lives. I am so excited that so many other members have also decided to do the same,” Cleo Solomons, a congregation member of Shincheonji Church, said.

The blood donation drive that took place in Gqeberha

Another churchgoer, Nolwazi Bengu, said that “Because our hearts are for helping people, we moved as fast as lightning to organise this blood drive throughout the country. This is the very least that we can do. Please be encouraged by this and take some time yourself to also come and donate your blood.”

Approximately 18,000 members of the church in South Korea also participated in donating blood since the start of their drive in April. This number was recorded as the largest group blood donation in the country to date. The head of the Korean Red Cross Blood Service, Mr Namsun Cho, said in a statement, “When the impact of the Omicron reached its peak, Shincheonji Church launched a large-scale blood donation drive. It was like rain during the drought. We are surprised that the number of donors exceeded 6,000 in just 3 days and so many more participated. We appreciate their life-saving dedication.”

In KwaZulu-Natal, Govender from the SANBS further asked for other churches to emulate Shincheonji Church and donate blood as the shortage remains critical in the province. He said that although the SANBS have worked with other churches before, they found the Shincheonji national blood drive encouraging as the church has pledged to bring their donor members in droves this past Saturday. 

“We don’t have that many donors that come out and so many people who are actually into donating blood. So, it’s quite amazing what Shincheonji did. It makes a huge difference,” said Chantelle Bouw from the SANBS in Gqeberha. “One blood donation can save up to three people’s lives.” She urged the public to also participate by visiting their nearest donation centre.

To find your nearest donation centre contact 0800 119 031. You can also visit www.sanbs.org.za

Institutionalising Peace: HWPL Calls for Collective Action to Bring Peace as a Culture and Norm

This year, to tackle the current threats to life and stability from wars and conflicts, HWPL’s 9th Annual Commemoration of the Declaration of World Peace was held online on May 25th, 2022. With participants as representatives from politics, religion, academia, media and civil society, the event with the theme of “Institutionalizing Peace: Realizing the Collective Will for Peace” presented the progress of international cooperation to realise sustainable peace ensured by legal instruments.

The host organization, Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), proclaimed the Declaration of World Peace back in 2013. The declaration addresses the endorsement of national leaders, engagement of women and youth, cooperation among civil societies, and expansion of media coverage on peace. Afterward, it was developed into the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) as a process to establish international legal instruments for global peace.

Young Min Chung, the General Director of the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), an affiliate group of HWPL, said in his progress report, “730,000 citizens from 176 countries have signed in support of the DPCW for the past nine years which allows them to express their opinions more directly. Recently, the IPYG is running the Youth Empowerment Peace Workshop (YEPW), where they discuss the agendas such as education, human rights, and conflicts and conduct joint action as well as policy proposals.”

Peace Walk Organized by Citizens Paved Way to the Substantial Peace Movement

The 10 articles and 38 clauses of the DPCW include prevention and resolution of conflicts, gradual reduction of war potential and turning weapons into daily tools, respecting and resolving conflicts based on religion and ethnic identity, and spreading a culture of peace. The declaration is geared toward engaging nations, international organizations, NGOs, and individual citizens in taking action for a peaceful world.

As for the collaboration for peacebuilding, Chairman Man Hee Lee of HWPL appealed to the participants to be united as “messengers of peace” to bring freedom and peace to future generations. “This time (Russia) invaded Ukraine and started the war. This is why HWPL and families of peace have long called for the establishment of international law to prevent war potential. So, we gathered experts in international law globally and made the declaration with 10 articles and 38 clauses.”

Commemorative Speech by HWPL Chairman Man Hee Lee

As a case of activities to resolve religious conflicts, Raeesa Sheikh, a member of the Ansari Qadiri Tariqa Youth Club in Durban, South Africa participated in the HWPL Religious Youth Peace Camp shared about the importance of youth engaging in religious dialogues. “When we put ourselves in another person’s shoes when we look at things from various perspectives, we can keep an open mind and understand differences, and not discriminate based on those differences but rather look at those similarities and then come together so that we can ultimately live as God wants us to love, as brother and sister, as a community, as a nation, as humanity.”

HWPL Peace Education was Conducted via Metabus (Online)

Educators’ participation in peace-related activities was also introduced at the event. Teaching methodology with the use of Metaverse was demonstrated as a virtual world platform where students can experience peace by reading materials and observing diverse peace activities that are carried out in many parts of the world.

One of the participant students said, “I learned the need for international law to achieve peace. We need a law that can achieve peace. People must abide by the law and if all people become citizens of peace, we would not even need the law.”

Institutionalising Peace: HWPL Calls for Collective Action to Bring Peace as a Culture and NormHWPL has been developing global cooperation for peace both at the international level and at the national level by garnering the support of international organizations for the DPCW and working hand in hand to reinforce international norms to realize peace. With civil organizations, HWPL has been carrying out activities for the public good to ensure that peace takes root.

A group of 18,000 blood donations contributes to stability of blood supply in South Korea

Blood short­ages due to COVID-19 are preva­lent across the world. In Jan­u­ary, the Amer­i­can Red Cross de­clared “a na­tional blood cri­sis” pois­ing a great risk to pa­tient care. In March, a US-based non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion Memo­r­ial Blood Cen­ters (MBC) de­clared the blood “emer­gency” due to a lack of the stock of type O blood at only 1-2 day sup­ply and ap­pealed to the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in a sin­gle blood do­na­tion that can save up to three lives.

Accord­ing to the Red Cross, blood is used for a va­ri­ety of pur­poses, in­clud­ing se­ri­ous in­juries caused by ac­ci­dents, sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dures, ane­mia, child­birth, and can­cer treat­ment. But since blood can­not be ar­ti­fi­cially pro­duced, ex­perts say the only so­lu­tion to the blood sup­ply lies in do­nat­ing blood.

In South Ko­rea, in co­op­er­a­tion with Heav­enly Cul­ture, World Peace and Restora­tion of Light (HWPL), 18,000 mem­bers of Shin­cheonji Church of Je­sus and HWPL par­tic­i­pated in blood do­na­tion for two weeks from April 18th. This num­ber was recorded as the largest group blood do­na­tion in the coun­try.

Youth members of Shincheonji Church of Jesus participated in the donation drive.

Nam­sun Cho, head of the Ko­rean Red Cross Blood Ser­vices, said, “When the im­pact of the Omi­cron reached its peak, Shin­cheonji Church of Je­sus launched a large scale of blood do­na­tion. It was like rain dur­ing a drought. We are sur­prised that the num­ber of donors ex­ceeded 6,000 in 3 days and more peo­ple par­tic­i­pated. We ap­pre­ci­ate their life-sav­ing ded­i­ca­tion.”

“They did a re­ally great job in the life-shar­ing move­ment. This scale is equiv­a­lent to one army corps do­nat­ing blood for a year. The num­ber of blood donors is nearly four times the num­ber in a nor­mal day, a great help in over­com­ing the cur­rent blood sup­ply cri­sis,” said an of­fi­cial from the Blood Ser­vices.

“We also ap­pre­ci­ate the mem­bers of the Shin­cheonji Church of Je­sus who par­tic­i­pated in the na­tion­wide plasma do­na­tion for the de­vel­op­ment of a treat­ment for COVID-19 back in 2020,” he added.

In South Ko­rea, blood do­na­tion cer­tifi­cates are is­sued to blood donors. The cer­tifi­cate can be used when pay­ing for a blood trans­fu­sion so that the trans­fu­sion fee to pa­tients is de­ducted. All the donors of Shin­cheonji Church of Je­sus and HWPL also do­nated their cer­tifi­cates to al­le­vi­ate the fi­nan­cial bur­den of pa­tients who need blood for treat­ment.

Shin­cheonji Church of Je­sus, head­quar­tered in Gwacheon, South Ko­rea, is con­tribut­ing to the com­mu­ni­ties through vol­un­teer ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing plasma and blood do­na­tions, al­though the church suf­fered greatly from the ini­tial stage of COVID-19 pan­demic.

HWPL, head­quar­tered in Seoul, South Ko­rea, is a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tion un­der the UN Eco­nomic and So­cial Coun­cil and De­part­ment of Global Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is car­ry­ing out long-term peace pro­jects through ed­u­ca­tion, re­lief, and youth em­pow­er­ment based on sol­i­dar­ity with civil so­ci­ety and in­ter­na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tions in 193 coun­tries.