A DECOMMISSIONED blood collection vehicle parked in Huaqiangbei, Futian District, for years will be repainted soon to promote blood donation and the Universiade.
The mobile blood collection vehicle, one of the oldest in the country, will be repaired regularly and will remain in Huaqiangbei during the Universiade, said Zhu Weigang, vice director of the city blood center.
In 1995, Shenzhen sent two blood collection vehicles onto the street to collect blood, one in Huaqiangbei and the other in Dongmen in Luohu District. It was the first city in the country to promote blood donation in this way.
The two vehicles were decommissioned in 2002 after years of service. The one at the Worker s Cultural Square in Dongmen has become a collection at Shenzhen Museum to showcase the history of blood donation in Shenzhen, while the other one has remained in Huaqiangbei as a way to promote blood donation, Zhu said.
However, many residents said the vehicle had been parked there like an abandoned car for years. If it is such a meaningful vehicle, I think the department should make it look better, like erecting some signs or repainting its body, an unidentified resident in Huaqiangbei said.
We thought about some other ways to promote blood donation, but we found there was no better way to do it than the decommissioned vehicle. Blood collected on the sixth floor of Xiandai Zhichuan Building in Huaqiangbei now accounts for more than 50 percent of all donated blood in the city and this vehicle had played an important role, Zhu said.
Zhu said the blood center was designing a new picture for its body and the official logo of the Shenzhen Universiade would also be painted on its body.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
