Civil commitment
MHB student activities to save lives and protect the climate
Neuruppin, 31 March 2025
Students at the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane (MHB) are actively involved in saving lives and protecting the climate. Some of them joined the so called Uni Challenge organized by the German Red Cross in January this year. The regional blood transfusion service which collects life-saving blood donations on the premises of the university hospital Ruppin-Brandenburg (ukrb) in the vicinity of the MHB had promised to plant a tree for each first-time donor.
The promise was honored on 28 March when participants in the challenge from several universities – MHB, University of Potsdam, Hasso Plattner Institute, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg – met for a tree planting campaign. Annett Smolka, head of PR with DRK-Blutspendedienst Nord-Ost, was greatly pleased with the result and grateful to all university departments and donors involved. Special thanks and compliments went to the first-time donors for supporting seriously ill individuals and doing something for the regional vegetation: “Our DRK section donates 20 additional saplings, raising the total to 100 young trees.” The area chosen for the new plants such as European white elms and oaks is near Beelitz and was destroyed by forest fires.
Summer heat caused a large fire on 19 June 2022. Over 1000 fire fighters were on site, and the flames destroyed about 200 hectares of forest. A large part of the area had to be cleared subsequently, and today there is almost nothing left from the former pine forest apart from a few miserable stumps on dusty ground. Sebastin Mager (Alt Ruppin) from the project Viva la Wald as one of the reforestation coordinators estimates that a 15-hectare area requires approximately 50,000 saplings. The aim, so Mager, is to create mixed woodland that would be more resistant to man-made climate change and infestation. Equipped with spades, the volunteers set out in teams of two to work on one furrow respectively where they dug holes spaced at a meter and a half and planted the saplings.
Apart from environmental aspects, the Uni Challenge is primarily concerned with recruiting young people for blood donations. Many current donors from the so called baby boomer generation will be lost over the coming decade. This group currently accounts for about one quarter of DRK-registered donors and helps to ensure blood supplies around the year. As a consequence of demographic change and a population loss in the age group between 55 and 64, today’s young generation must be convinced that blood donations are absolutely necessary to ensure the long-term supply of life-saving blood preparations.