Your probably wondering why i decided to close down the old Donna’s Dream Facebook page (with 3500+ fans) and start from fresh and open a completely brand new Facebook page. A few people have asked me why so i thought i best explain myself. Rest assured, i didn’t come to the decision lightly!

The main reason was simply due to the name: “Donna’s Dream | Campaign for an Opt Out Organ Donor Register”

Yes, Donna’s Dream does campaign for an opt out but its not the only thing we do. Donna’s Dream is about getting more people signed up to the donor register and Donna wanted it to be a place where people who have been affected by transplantation can share their storys and help each other through tough times.

The name given to the facebook page kind of pigeon holed us into being only about opt out which caused further problems. The whole opt out debate is taboo for many people (hard to understand but it really is!). In the past year other organ donation related charities and organisations have refused to work with us, ignored offers of help for promotion and just basically pretended like we don’t exist. Furthermore, newspapers failed to mention us even though we had supplied the content for some of the stories they ran. Newspapers and magazines that had said they would mention us suddenly dropped any mention of Donna’s Dream at the time of publication.

These things of course caused me frustration but it was something our very own Salma said last week that really made me think I need to change the name.

Salma was helping with the NHS’s Black and Asian campaign (NHS Blood & Transplant along with Live Life Then Give Life don’t support opt out “at this time”) and asked on facebook what she should wear. Jokingly I said she should wear her Donna’s Dream hoodie. Salma was concerned as to whether she should because of the name Donna’s Dream has. That really made me think.

Is Donna’s Dream reallly being alienated because of our campaign (which according to the facebook page name looks like our PRIMARY reason for being)? I thought it would simply be a case of changing the name to broaden our appeal..nope! Facebook policy is that if a page has more than 100 fans you can’t change the page name. I even emailed them and asked politely if they could do it with no reply.

So I came to the difficult decision to start a new page with a slightly different name to reflect what we are ACTUALLY about. After all, Donna’s Actual Dream was for more donor organs, opt out was just one of the ideas she banded about and started to campaign for in her final months. I firmly believe that had I called the facebook page by this new name from the very beginning we would have had over double the 3500 fans by now due to the amount of people who want more donor organs but aren’t convinced by opt out. After all, if everyone who was a Donna’s Dream fan supported opt out how would we ever have any debates on the subject?

So here we are, the new facebook page is called “Donna’s Dream | Spreading the word about organ donation” which pretty much describes ALL of what Donna’s Dream is about and can be found at http://facebook.com/DonnasDreamCampaign.

Its going to be a long road to get the fans back but I know the die hard true supporters are already there!

Thanks all for joining up and sticking by the Donna’s Dream Campaign.

By this time next year I want us to be the most well known organ donor campaign in the UK, help me achieve it

Much love
Az x

UPDATE: Donna’s Dream will soon become a registered charity! Read the post: Donna’s Dream Aiming for Charity Status

 
If you have been inspired by this story please consider joining the NHS Organ Donor Register by clicking the banner below:

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