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Learning about organ donation
129 Plays2 years ago
On this episode we are talking with the founder of South Florida's first SODA (student organ donation advocates) chapter, a volunteer and ambassador for her local OPO (Life Alliance at University of Miami) and in her free time she is organizing education events. This episode is all about organ donation organisations.
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SODA’s social handles at https://lnkfi.re/sodaorg
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Produced by Vasilis Skarleas
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Transcript
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Changemaker-Z Introduction
00:01:07
Speaker
Hello, everyone. I'm Kennedy. And I'm Vasiles.
00:01:11
Speaker
We run Changemaker-Z, a student-run initiative that aims to empower, educate, and connect Gen-Zers interested in entrepreneurship. We interview teenagers with impactful projects and create resources to help you change the world. If they can't do it, so can he. On this podcast, we discuss the logistics of creating different types of projects with Gen-Zers who have already done it. We will leave our social media and website information in the description.
Meet Ariana Motzak
00:01:49
Speaker
Welcome everyone to today's episode. Today we are talking with Ariana Motzak about an important initiative. Ariana is a high school student and organ donation advocate. She is the founder of South Florida's first soda.
00:02:04
Speaker
which is the resource for student organ donation advocate's chapter. A volunteer and ambassador for the local OPO drives a license at the University of Miami. And in her free time, she's organizing education events. Today's episode is all about organ donation organizations. Welcome to the show, Ariana. So nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.
00:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, so excited to have you here. So let's get started. Can you tell us more about student organ donation advocates? Which is your mission?
00:02:41
Speaker
So SODA is an international organization dedicated to organ donation specifically for high school and college students. Their mission is to open chapters to high schools and colleges around the U.S. and student leaders organize events and educational drives at their schools.
00:03:04
Speaker
That's awesome. I did just want to kind of, you said in your intro, we kind of talked about how you were a local like OPO at University of Miami. I just want to say my brother actually went there. So go hurricanes. Do you have any plans? I actually, it's one of the schools that I do have in mind to apply to because it's an amazing university and it's really close by.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm y'all. The Miami campus is beautiful. It's like you're on vacation. Palm trees everywhere. Beautiful. Yes. But there are like little Geico running around geckos. I don't know. They're full of them here in South Florida. You walk down the street and they're just running under your feet. Yeah.
00:03:57
Speaker
It's like ants for Florida, that's so funny.
Ariana's SODA Journey
00:04:00
Speaker
So Ariana, how did you get started with soda?
00:04:03
Speaker
So before I started with SODA, I started volunteering for Life Alliance, my local OPO. And if anyone doesn't know what an OPO is, their organ could cure my organizations. And they have a jurisdiction over regions, and they're all across the U.S. And I started volunteering for them because my dad told me about them, and I was really interested in the mission.
00:04:28
Speaker
And being a really young volunteer at the time, I was a high school freshman. So they told me about soda. They introduced me to the people who work for soda. And it seemed like a really great club. And I haven't seen anything like that here in Florida.
00:04:46
Speaker
And so I started working with soda and this was my freshman year actually. I started the chapter freshman year. I gathered some friends that I knew would be interested and it was a really easy process. We started a chapter with one of my teachers that I'm close with.
00:05:02
Speaker
That's amazing. In my high school, we actually, I didn't, but some of my friends started this BC2M chapter, which is a mental health organization. That's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing that you brought it to Florida. It's amazing how many different initiatives we can see that starts from school and then they take a more and more bigger road in people's lives. Would you like to share some of your most important accomplishments?
00:05:29
Speaker
Sure. So specifically for our chapter, um, this year has been a really good year for us. For example, for national donor day, which was February 14th on Valentine's day as well. Um, we did an event at our school where we made a, um, a banner, a photo banner type thing. And we wrote on it. I'm a lifesaver.
00:05:53
Speaker
And it was shaped like a lifesaver, like the candies. And we had people come by, take pictures with them, and it was amazing the amount of students we were able to educate. One of our big accomplishments is our peer speakers program, where we train a few students.
00:06:11
Speaker
I actually train them personally and we go virtually into our classrooms a few times into the year and we take around 45 minutes to just talk about organ donation with the students.
00:06:27
Speaker
That's incredible because I personally, like I kind of know a surface level about organ donation. I'm actually an organ donor myself just because it's like, in my mind, I'm like, I'm going to be gone. Why not help somebody else?
00:06:44
Speaker
That's a great way of thinking about it and it's and it is kind of difficult to get that message across especially to younger people like us because it's sometimes it's hard to understand it and maybe for some people who have a personal connection to it like I do or for example the founder of soda
00:07:05
Speaker
the organization in the U.S. She also had a personal story with the one she served her chapter. So it's really good for us to be able to communicate that to some other classmates or friends. Do you, if you're comfortable, do you mind sharing your story or even like what like, if I donate, if I become an organ donor, how can I help? Like, what?
00:07:31
Speaker
That's great. That's one of the big statistics we share is that one person, when they pass away, they can save up to eight lives. Because there's the organs you can donate, for example, your heart. You have two kidneys, livers. The thing about livers, you can donate to multiple people. And then you can enhance,
Impact of Organ Donation
00:07:51
Speaker
I believe, up to 70 or more lives. What that means is organ donation, there's also tissue donation.
00:07:58
Speaker
which includes your skin, your corneas, things like that, which can enhance people's lives. For example, survivors of burns, or some people who have gone blind, they can help with your corneas. For me personally, my story is that my dad is on the national waiting list for a kidney transplant, and so he was the one who introduced me to Life Alliance, and that's how it started for me.
00:08:29
Speaker
That's incredible that we can help, like, eight people with just our organs, up to 70 people with skin tissue. I didn't even think about the whole skin tissue thing for, like, burn victims. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty amazing how one person can help so many people. We have never think of that before.
00:08:48
Speaker
While this is such an important action, many people are afraid to get involved due to several dangers or other factors. Maybe there are psychological factors. What have you said about that?
Addressing Organ Donation Myths
00:09:01
Speaker
There are definitely a lot of psychological factors, like you said. Just the thought alone of passing away and having them do the surgeries and things like that, for some people it's difficult to think about.
00:09:16
Speaker
which is a big reason that a lot of people are afraid, as you said, to step forward. And even registering as an organ donor, there are so many myths. For example, a really common myth we get is that if I have the registration logo on my license, and if something happens to me, for example, in an accident, and the EMT and the doctor see that, they're not going to save my life.
00:09:45
Speaker
Which is completely not true. That's literally what my mom told me. It's really common and it's not true. EMT doesn't even know or the doctors don't even know that you're a registered organ donor. A lot of times when you're in an emergency and you go to the ER, you're basically a John Doe. They don't even know who you are unless you tell them that.
00:10:10
Speaker
And until the time you pass away, that's when they're gonna find out. And it's literally their job to save your life, and that's always the priority. Along with so many other myths, including religion, which is a big reason some people don't step forward, but it's something that at least most of the major religions in the U.S. encourage.
00:10:38
Speaker
The whole like, oh, if you like put your, you're going to get a piece of that person or like their personality or something like that. I mean, I've actually never heard that one, but I guess some people do think that. Are there any other misses? Would you like to share?
00:10:53
Speaker
For some, this is mostly, I believe, like, older people, is that if I pass away and they have to do, obviously, surgeries and things for tissue and organ donation, that it's gonna dismantle the body, or, like, I won't be able to have an open casket funeral, which is also not true, because they do their best to take the best care of your body, and it can all be covered up, the scars or anything. That's good news.
00:11:22
Speaker
So now that we've kind of busted some myths, we're feeling better, we're feeling good, we're educating ourselves about organ donating, how can we get involved?
How to Join SODA
00:11:31
Speaker
I know you kind of talked about, you know, you got to register. But even like, if there's a soda chapter near somebody, how can you get involved?
00:11:38
Speaker
Well, the first thing definitely is to register as an organ donor. And we don't always try to push people to register as an organ donor, especially if you're under 18. Because that's a discussion you want to have with your family as well. Because even if you register, you don't need their consent to register. But if something is to happen to you, they're the ones that are going to make the final decision.
00:12:01
Speaker
So it's always, yeah, for minors, that's the case. And it's always important to talk to your family. I think those are the first two steps everyone should take. And for SODA, specifically, if your school already has a chapter, you can definitely, of course, join it. They do a lot of activities and follow them on social media. If you would like to start a chapter at your school or university or college, that doesn't have one.
00:12:30
Speaker
It's a really quick and easy process and Soda National is very friendly.
00:12:36
Speaker
and open, all you have to do is go through their website. If you google Soda National, it will pop up and you just have to complete a form and you need three other people who would be willing to start it with you. That's so cool and that doesn't sound that hard. You guys, we can find, I feel like we can all find maybe three, two, three people interested in something like this.
00:13:01
Speaker
I say, I give a challenge, guys, let's try to, if this is interesting to you, it sounds like something you want to do, start a soda chapter at your school. If you don't have one, start it, and start educating people about work and building. It's so important, as we heard. Yeah, it saves lives. And if you're interested in seeing, for example, what my chapter does, you can always check out our Instagram, at soda underscore MPSHS, or go to pseudo national's Instagram as well. They have a lot of information.
Ariana's Future Plans
00:13:30
Speaker
Now I want to know, has your work with, you know, SODA, I know you said you're thinking about going to University of Miami, like, are you thinking of pursuing a career in maybe like the medical field or continuing your advocacy in the future at all? For my career, to be honest, I'm not 100% sure. I know I wanted to go into the science field, but I'm not totally sure about the medical field.
00:14:04
Speaker
I'm gonna have that thought because I was thinking of going into biology and as we all know it's not a very easy subject because of pre-med and then for I continue my advocacy of course I don't think I'm gonna stop
00:14:20
Speaker
even when I go to the university. And we can do it. You can do soda on college campuses, right? Yeah, you can open chapters on high schools, colleges, and universities. So, which actions are you taking to educate students about the critical need of organ tissue, for instance?
Organ Donation Initiatives
00:14:37
Speaker
I do do some stuff outside of my chapter. For example, I'm part of the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council. That's a village where I live in right now. And the past year and this year, I've been able to organize a virtual event once a year, talking about organ donation and bringing a guest speaker.
00:15:02
Speaker
to educate the youth in the community about organ donation. This year something huge we did was I set forward a proclamation to have an organ donation day on April 8th in Pinecrest and it got recently just got approved so that's amazing news and it's next week and in our chapter
00:15:27
Speaker
We do a lot, as I mentioned, we do the peer speakers and we did events like National Donor Day. We do tabling for example. Earlier this year we had a blood drive and we set up a table there and when people passed by we handed out flyers.
00:15:45
Speaker
and some goodies, pens, stickers, all that good stuff. Something else we're doing this week is that we are doing a door decoration contest at our school for National Kidney Month. And we have, I believe, like 11 clubs participated at our school where they decorated the teachers' doors, educating people about kidney donation and fun facts.
00:16:14
Speaker
Oh, so March was National Kidney Month and April is Donate Life Month. All right, guys.
Conclusion and Involvement
00:16:22
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ariana, for coming with us. That's the end of the episode today. We talked a little bit about the soda organization, about organ donating, how to get it started, how to start a chapter in your school. So if any of that interests you, we're going to have all of her links in the description.
00:16:39
Speaker
And if you want to start an organization at your own school, you can definitely do that. So until next time, guys, keep changing the world. Bye. Thank you guys for listening. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. We had such a great time. Make sure to leave us a review. If you want more Changemakers content, you can follow us on Instagram at Jin Zears to Rise and on Facebook at ChangemakersE.