The Association of Indonesian Jesuit Schools Alumni (AAJI) organised a blood donation drive on the first week of November. Even without the pandemic, the demand for blood is increasing worldwide. Inspired by the Jesuit motto of “becoming men and women for and with others”, AAJI invited alumni of eight Jesuit colleges and one Jesuit university to become voluntary blood donors.
The activity was first initiated by KEKL, the association of Loyola College alumni, in 2019. This year, KEKL invited other colleges to collaborate in blood donation activities. This was a big challenge for the Indonesian Jesuit Alumni Association to build collaborative networking among the different Jesuit alumni associations across the country.
Our goal was to have 1,000 people participate in the event. Surprisingly, more than 1,200 people showed up in a simultaneous blood donation drive from 6 to 7 November in 48 cities in Indonesia, and in Singapore and Hong Kong. It was not easy to coordinate between committees spread across various cities and countries. Fortunately, everything went as planned. A total of 807 bags of blood were collected. There are many others who wanted to donate, but were constrained by health issues, such as high blood pressure and low hemoglobin levels.
Indonesian Provincial Fr Benedictus Hari Juliawan SJ was at Loyola College Senior High School in Semarang to open the event, and was the first in line to donate. He was full of enthusiasm as he invited lay colleagues to join him.
It was a touching and happy moment when a mother came to express her gratitude for her daughter who had needed a blood transfusion and finally received it. It happened at the Red Cross center of Fatmawati Hospital in Jakarta, where the blood donation drive was coordinated by IKAGONA (Gonzaga Alumni Association). This brought to mind Fr Juliawan’s words quoting St Ignatius of Loyola: “Love must be expressed more in actions than in words.” We don’t need to wait for big things to help others. We can simply start by doing simple things that might have a big impact on another person’s life.
Contributed by Adrianus Roy, Chairperson of the Indonesian Jesuit Alumni Association