Our story
Kan Akademi began with a personal and emotional experience of Elif Bölükbaş. On 1 January 2020, Elif lost her grandfather to lymphoma. At the funeral she was deeply moved to see the people who had given him blood and, in doing so, given him life. “I never had to search for blood for my grandfather; people became his lifeline,” she thought. This led Elif to volunteer for blood donation. But taking part in blood drives or sharing appeals was not enough; a bigger change was needed. Elif felt a responsibility to solve the problem at its root. The snowstorm that hit Istanbul in 2022 was the turning point that turned this responsibility into action. A child with blood type 0 Rh (-), who had no relatives in Türkiye, needed a granulocyte donation. Because of the pandemic, people did not want to go to hospitals or could not find the time. With a huge snowstorm on top of that, finding a donor became almost impossible. Elif did not give up; she took blood donation posters to the streets. She went around her neighbourhood, her school and everywhere she knew to reach people. But she came face to face with a shocking reality: the vast majority of the people she spoke to did not even know their own blood type.
This realisation set Elif in motion. Going beyond being a volunteer who looks for blood donors, she decided she had to build a platform that would raise people’s awareness. And so Kan Akademi was born. Wanting to build a project armed with the power of science, Elif set out to make blood donation a conscious habit of society and to spread this culture.
Who are we?
Kan Akademi (Turkish for “Blood Academy”) is a volunteer, youth-led project in Türkiye. University students research questions about blood donation, academics and health professionals check their work, and we share it as articles, videos, social media posts, posters, trainings and games, so that more people understand why giving blood matters and decide to donate.
Vision
A society where giving blood is a normal, lasting part of everyday life, for everyone and everywhere in Türkiye.
Mission
To use science to create clear, inspiring content, online and in person, that shows young people and the wider public why blood donation matters, so that more people become regular donors.