Students face bloody battle in Vampire Cup

Glenn Curtin, founder of the Vampire Cup

Sixteen third level institutions across the country are set to take part in the Vampire Cup next September, to see who will come out on top in a bloody battle.

The bright idea of final year UCC medicine student Glenn Curtin; the Vampire Cup is a national intervarsity drive to get young people donating blood.

“I have always been a passionate blood donor. In my family, we donate blood when we turn 18 as a kind of coming of age thing. But when I came to college, or even sixth year of secondary school, I realized that my friends weren't blood donors,” he said.

“Young people aren't donating blood, they're the least represented in blood donation statistics. The Vampire Cup is trying to fix that.” 

After hearing about a similar competition in Australia amongst medical students, Mr Curtin realised that the same concept could be expanded to include all students at third-level, and work to address low blood donation levels amongst young people in Ireland.

For the duration of the next academic year, the students and staff of sixteen colleges and universities in Ireland will be battling it out in an intervarsity blood drive, not only to see who will be crowned the bloodiest college, but to increase national blood stocks, and start young people on a lifelong practice of donating.

“It will run for the duration of the academic year, with the biggest push from September to December, because blood stocks usually deplete around Christmas time, and then in semester two we will have more big pushes to coincide with the different RAG weeks. I can’t wait, and there are already lots of people excited from each of the college campuses. What I want Vampire Cup to become, is a coming of age intervention, that when you start going to higher education, you are given that opportunity to make that decision to become a blood donor,” said Mr Curtin.

Only 8% of blood donors in 2020 were aged between 18 and 24.

Fewer donors

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service’s Annual Report for 2020 showed that those aged 18-24 were the second least likely to donate blood, the only age category with fewer donors being those aged over 67.

Only 8% of blood donors in 2020 were aged between 18 and 24, less than half of the 18% of donors aged between 46-52, the most common age to donate blood.

“There’s lots of barriers to young people donating blood. There’s a lack of information, most of the information given about blood donation is either through radio advertising, or email newsletters, that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service operates. There's no information hub on college campuses, and the Vampire Cup will change that,” said Mr Curtin.

“Another barrier is the restrictions around men who have sex with men. That's a hugely topical issue that a lot of college representatives have addressed with me that they want that to change because it excludes a lot of people, and I think there's a higher proportion of the younger generation that identify as either gay or bisexual and can't donate blood. What the Vampire Cup aims to do there is to educate people about that restriction, and work with the Blood Transfusion Service to hopefully change it in the future as well,” he added.

Mr Curtin is a graduate of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland (SEI) Idea’s Academy and is now receiving support from SEI to roll out the competition to over 200,000 students and staff of universities and colleges in Ireland in September.

SEI have now opened applications for their next round of the Ideas Academy and Impact Programme, with 50 places available for social entrepreneurs such as Mr Curtin, and €140,000 in funding to support their ideas and solutions to social issues. Applications for the Ideas Academy and Impact Programme are open until midnight on Tuesday, April 5, and interested candidates can apply or find out more at socialentrepreneurs.ie.