May 8, 2002 - These school holidays, join fifteen youth organisations which have pledged to be blood donors for The Red Challenge Award, a National Blood Donor Recruitment Programme for youths.

The joint organisers - the Singapore Red Cross Society (SRCS) and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) - hope that the Red Challenge Award would help recruit more youths to donate blood in the month of June, which is a "drought period" for the Bloodbank as student participation dips during the school holidays. First launched in 2001, the Red Challenge Award is supported by the National Youth Council.

The month-long programme, which starts on June 1, aims to recruit youths between the ages of 16 and 25 to donate blood. The organisers will issue a "challenge" to the various youth groups in Singapore to garner more young people from their respective organisations to donate blood. The youth group with the most number of donors at the end of the programme will win the Red Challenge Challenge Trophy.

"Every June holiday, many youth organisations organise activities to involve youths in voluntary works locally and internationally to help the needy people. Blood donation is a universal and most generous form of voluntary act performed by humans only. Through the participation of the youth organisations in the Red Challenge, we hope that many youth donors will come forward to share their "Gift-of-Life" to the vulnerable patients requiring blood transfusion and yet have some fun in coming together as a group to make blood donation an interesting and worthy lifestyle", said Ms Carol Teo of the Singapore Red Cross Society" Blood Donor Recruitment Programme.

The Red Challenge Road Show at Junction 8 on May 11

The Red Challenge Road Show will be held this Saturday, May 11 at Junction 8, Open Plaza on level 2 to launch the event. The two-hour road show from 5pm to 7pm will feature performances by local singing sensation Joi Chua, youths from the People's Association Youth Movement and Singapore Soka Association and a special item by a blood recipient, Valerie Kum. The performers will help to drive home the message that anyone with a healthy body and a caring heart can give blood. They will encourage all present to sign up as blood donors. Attractive prizes will also be given away at the fun-filled and meaningful road show.

In conjunction with the Red Challenge Award, a poster-design competition with the theme of recruiting blood donors was held in April. The top three winners of the competition will be invited to receive their prizes from Guest-of-Honour Dr Ong Seh Hong, MP for Aljunied GRC at the road show.

The winner of this year's poster competition is 24-year-old Sarina Mohd Bani, a final year student at the Temasek Design School of Temasek Polytechnic. The publicity poster and press advertisements for this year's event are also designed by Sarina, who volunteered to do it at no cost.

The Red Challenge Prize-Presentation and Red Apple Day

The winners of this year's Red Challenge Award will be announced at a prize presentation ceremony on Jul 9 at the SPH Auditorium. On the same day, SPH will also be organising its Red Apple Day, an in-house blood donation drive for its employees.

Says Mr Wee Leong How, Executive Vice President, Human Resources & Corporate Relations of SPH, "For reasons we do not know, it is quite difficult to get Singaporeans to donate blood. Yet, this is really one of the most important life-saving acts any individual can be called upon to perform. And it costs the person nothing. We hope the publicity from these activities will help to encourage more younger Singaporeans to come forward and donate blood to save lives."

SPH and SRCS would like to appeal to everyone to pledge as blood donors at The Red Challenge Road Show on May 11.

Members of the public can contact the Singapore Red Cross Society at Tel: 6220 0183 for more information on blood donation.

Jointly issued by Singapore Red Cross Society and Singapore Press Holdings Ltd

For more information, please contact:

Ms Carol Teo
Manager, Communications
Blood Donor Recruitment Programme
Singapore Red Cross Society
Tel: 6220 0183
Mobile: 9847 2024
E-mail: cteosrcs@cyberway.com.sg

Mr Francis Mah
Assistant Manager
Corporate Relations
Singapore Press Holdings Limited
Tel: 6319 1028
Email: mahys@sph.com.sg