There’s a fun, interactive map online this week. It’s called Lighting Up Pink 2024, and it shows the locations of buildings, monuments and landmarks all across the UK that are being bathed in pink light to draw attention to this week’s campaign for organ donation. Is there one near you? Check the map on the website – Organ Donation Week 2024
Why pink? Simple. Pink is the colour of the organ donation card.
The more pink there is around, the easier it is to see the support for organ donation around the country. It’s a colourful invitation, a reminder, encouraging people to consider registering their decision about being a donor.
There seem to be about 170 places on the list so far, including theatres, bridges, hospitals, museums, Council offices, Town and City Halls, monuments, natural features, and more. Last year, even the Kelpies, outside Falkirk, Scotland, 300 tonne, 100-foot tall steel sculptures of horses heads, the largest equine sculptures in the world, were bathed in pink light as part of the week’s campaign. (Are the Kelpies in the pink again this year?)
Check the map, or your local media, and go sightseeing (in weather appropriate clothing!). If you do find a ‘pinked-up location’ near you, you are invited to take a selfie with it and share it on your social media platform, using the tag ‘@nhsorgandonor’.
It might be a bit late to encourage those in charge of civic buildings and monuments near you to add pink lights this year – but why not look around and see who could be persuaded to join in for Organ Donation Week 2025? Is there an iconic site near you that could carry a message that might save lives? The Organ Donation Week website even carries a template invitation letter you can modify to suit your location and send to those who can make it happen. Of course, if you’ve already got outside lights at your house you don’t even have to send a letter…
The most important thing you can do is to register your decision about being a donor, or not, and that can take just a couple of minutes – here’s a LINK . Whatever your decision, please remember to talk to your loved ones. It could be a great help to them if they ever have to answer for you.
Meanwhile, do what you can to stay in the pink…
Daithi Mac Gabhann, almost 8 years of age, was awarded the Freedom of the City of Belfast in June 2023, in honour of his family’s campaigning on organ donation. Daithi has been on the Transplant Waiting List since 2018, waiting for a new heart. Belfast City Hall will be dressed in pink again this week…