Northern Academy was crowned the 2018/19 provincial winners of the South African Blood Service’s (SANBS) Peer Promoter initiative during an event held in Polokwane on Friday.
The learners reigned supreme during SANBS initiative aimed at training learners to become active peer promoters at their respective schools, and also to impact more knowledge and education on blood donation.
The school beat more than 35 schools in the province by collecting 136 units of blood, eight units more than the target of 128 set for all the high schools in the province which participated in the initiative.
Congratulating the school, Bongiwe Shitlhangu, SANBS’s Northern Zone Donor Educator said they thank all the schools for all their hard work and dedication towards being peer promoters and for recruiting and educating their peers to become blood donors and saving people’s lives. “At the end of the day we managed to save people lives through their commitment towards the project,” Shitlhangu said.
SANBS Peer Promoter from Northern Academy, Hlabano Mzingaye who was part of the team said he was happy to have been part of the noble initiative. “We started with the initiative last year January. Our core objective was to encourage our peers to donate blood and save lives. It was not easy in the initial stages because some of the young people don’t understand how this blood donation drives works. We are happy that they eventually understood the whole initiative hence we became winners. We just want thank the community of Polokwane for showing support during our blood drives at the school,”Hlabano said.
Story and photo: Herbert Rachuene
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