Donate an organ, give someone a new life – Preeti” She joined AIIMS as a young data entry operator, and around the age of 26, she became one of the first and youngest recipient of a donated heart in 2001 — from a 14-year-old boy. Today, over a decade later, she has become the face of a massive outdoor campaign launched by the institute to promote organ donation. Two billboards have been put up on Aurobindo Marg — outside the campuses of the main AIIMS building and AIIMS Trauma Centre, facing the busy Ring Road. According to Dr Arti Vij, chief of Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation (ORBO), “This is the first time, that we are trying such a large-scale, outdoor campaign, to promote the cause of organ donation. We hope this will help spike donation numbers.” The campaign called “with a human touch”, will use faces of donors and recipients, and the pictures will be changed from time to time. “We will get a donor’s face next. Each time, we will change the lines to drive home the message so that it appeals to people in a unique way,” Dr Vij said. The hospital used in-house talent, with help from international advertising agency Ogilvy and Mathers (O&M), to design the advertisements, which was free of cost. She said while small posters had been put up all over the institute over the years, and leaflets and handouts distributed generously, authorities hoped this campaign will touch a chord with the common man. The billboards have been attracting a lot of attention. “It is a beautifully crafted message and people have been asking us what ORBO means. To generate such an interest, is no mean feat,” one of the chemists outside the AIIMS said. Despite sustained efforts, organ donation figures in the Capital, have failed to take off. After the first heart transplant in 1994, only 30-odd transplants have been performed. Since 1972, only 20,000-odd kidney transplants have been performed. For the last four years, Delhi has fallen short of the target for eye donations under the state programme. Only 2,086 corneal retrievals were done last year against a target of 4,000. Ideally, a total of 11 organs can be retrieved from every cadaver, including kidney, heart, eyes and liver.