'Blood Donation Guinness' Broken in India... Korean Volunteer Group 'We Are One' Registers World Record with Over 70,000 Daily Applicants

Volunteer Group Launched Last July Plans to Promote Blood Donation Importance

Previous India 8 Hours 10,217 People, "7 Times Record, Unmatched"

WIAWON volunteer members are celebrating after achieving the Guinness World Record for blood donation.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] The blood donation record of a Korean volunteer group has been registered in the Guinness World Records.

They registered the highest number of blood donors within 24 hours, earning a place in the Guinness World Records.

The domestic youth volunteer group ‘We Are One (We Are One)’ reportedly had 71,121 members apply for blood donation online over a 24-hour period on the 1st, in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record.

This Guinness challenge was promoted by We Are One, which is conducting the ‘Life ON Youth ON’ blood donation campaign, to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation and to overcome the blood shortage crisis caused by COVID-19.

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, data on blood donation from 2018 to 2021 shows that due to a decrease in general blood donations over the past three years, blood supply has become difficult, leading to a surge in designated blood donations where patients directly seek donors.

During 2020 and 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic caused an emergency in blood supply, making it very difficult for patients to find blood donors.

As the number of patients seeking designated blood donors rapidly increased on social media recently, We Are One planned a large-scale campaign to challenge 70,000 blood donations.

Even though COVID-19 is subsiding, the campaign aimed to highlight the ongoing blood shortage crisis and encourage blood donation volunteering.

A total of over 70,000 volunteers applied for blood donation through the Korean Red Cross’s official blood donation application, ‘Red Connect,’ from 8 a.m. on October 1 to 8 a.m. on October 2, completing 71,121 applications within 24 hours.

The previous record was held by India with 12,170 donors in 8 hours, but Korea surpassed this by nearly seven times with over 70,000 donors, setting a remarkable record difficult to match anywhere else in the world.

The Guinness organization officially recognized the new world record on the 13th. This means a massive blood donation event was successfully conducted with 70,000 volunteers simultaneously applying through the app.

The We Are One team, who planned the Guinness challenge, said, “The key was to schedule the 70,000 participants by time slots to avoid system overload and errors. With help from the Korean Red Cross, we rehearsed, but we were nervous about unexpected issues on the day. Without the earnest desire to share new life through blood donation, achieving this record would have been impossible.”

One volunteer said, “I practiced and set alarms to log in on time so that my mistake wouldn’t cause the challenge to fail.”

They added, “While it was a simple task for each individual, it was not easy for 70,000 people to keep their promises from their own places, and the server had to operate smoothly, so we were truly earnest.”

Also, to prevent inconvenience to other blood donation applicants during the Guinness World Record challenge, the Korean Red Cross Blood Management Headquarters IT team checked servers and ensured there were no issues with general blood donation applications.

Hong Joon-soo, CEO of We Are One, said, “This challenge shared the situation of patients struggling with blood shortages during the global COVID-19 pandemic and went beyond simply registering a record to raise awareness worldwide about the value and importance of life-saving blood donation.”

Hong also evaluated, “Blood donors, the Korean Red Cross, and the blood donation app developers all came together as one to achieve this happy success.”

The youth volunteer group We Are One was launched on July 30 this year. Symbolizing its 70,000 domestic members at launch, We Are One has been conducting the ‘70,000 Blood Donations’ campaign since August 27.

As of the 16th, a total of 67,147 people have taken on the challenge, with 47,706 completing blood donation, and the plan is to complete 70,000 blood donations by November.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.