Applications are open today for grants for community-based initiatives aimed at boosting organ and tissue donation registration among young Australians in 2023.
Young Australians aged between 16 and 25 have the lowest organ and tissue donor registration rates across the nation with only 10% of the more than 3.2 million eligible young adults currently registered.
The low numbers are despite recent research showing many young adults want to be an organ donor but simply haven’t gotten around to registering.
Just one organ donor can save up to seven lives and with around 1,800 people on the organ transplant waitlist, more can be done to encourage friends, family, and colleagues to register as donors.
9 out of 10 families say yes to donation when they are asked in the hospital if their family member was a registered donor – but that number is halved if their family member was not registered and had not told them they wanted to be a donor.
The 2023 Community Awareness Grants are a great way for organisations across Australia to raise awareness among young adults and help highlight just how easy it is to register as an organ and tissue donor.
Applications are now open for innovative community-based initiatives, with a total of $385,000 in funding available across two categories:
- National events – national community awareness events that reach a mass youth audience to encourage registrations on the Australian Organ Donor Register, and
- Innovative digital projects – strategic digital activities targeting young people to encourage registrations on the Australian Organ Donor Register.
To find out more please visit donatelife.gov.au/grants.
QUOTES ATTRIBUTABLE TO ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE GED KEARNEY
“We know that young people support organ and tissue donation but the registration numbers don’t reflect their enthusiasm. We need to get the word out there, and these grants are a great way for us to reach them and get more people involved.”
“It is just so easy to register and save a life. We want more Australians to talk about organ and tissue donation, to tell their family that they want to be a donor, and importantly, to register.”