A simple idea of ??direct marketing managed to impact the right people so that they will help change a stigma that marked the LGBT community, allowing them to save lives.

A blood bag has a capacity of about half a liter, which can save up to three lives.

In Peru, almost 600,000 liters of blood are required every year, of which less than half is collected.

Even so, public medical centers reject blood from people in the LGBT community, simply because of their sexual orientation.

The medical form rules them out by identifying them as a high-risk group together with prostitutes, ex-convicts and drug addicts with an elevated possibility of carrying an STD.

This inclusion issue was well known in Peru, but it was overlooked by the Ministry of Health, despite the constant complaints from the LGBTcommunity on social networks.

The RAINBOWBLOOD movement was created by the organizations PRESENTE and ATH to change this discrimination toward the LGBT community. The idea of the movement was to generate a widespread media and political conversation about the rejection of blood from healthy individuals, which could save lives.

For the launch of the movement, we asked different people from the community who had been rejected as donors to take STD tests.

Their results were sent to influencers, politicians and journalists in empty blood bags, demonstrating that they are suitable donors according to World Health Organization criteria.

Each bag sent had a photograph of the person who took the tests, together with the following message: My blood could have been in this bag… but it was rejected.

In order to carry out the campaign, we start with a very simple observation: ignorance leads to ineffectiveness. If we do not have enough information to exercise our judgment and make a decision for ourselves, what we will do is stay still or follow the current. In the case of blood donation, the MEDICAL CENTERS did not have enough information to know that the LGBT community does not have a "risk behavior" solely because of their sexual orientation. That is why, for the most part, they obeyed the directive of the form and did not allow any member of this community to exercise their right to donate blood to save lives.

That said, we took that observation and made it reach different agents of change to serve as a megaphone for the cause. In this way, we highlighted that they did have enough information to do something about it.

For the implementation of the strategy, it was necessary to create a database of the people to which we would send the empty blood bags, in order for them to be impacted and help us to change this act of discrimination.

A total of 150 bags were sent, and on the same day the movement’s social network pages were launched, which showed different stories of people who had been rejected and data on how all of the blood that had not been received from the LGTBI community could have saved lives.

In addition, the www.rainbowblood.org website was launched, containing scientific information and information from the World Health Organization, which validated people in the LGTBI community as suitable blood donors (complying with the same requirements as heterosexual people).

This simple direct marketing started trending on social media and made the headlines.

All this media exposure took the conversation to the Congress of the Republic of Peru.

Ten days after the movement launched, the Ministry of Health announced a change in the selection process for blood donors, which open all medical centers doors to the LGBT community.

On that very day, people previously rejected, proudly went to country’s main clinic to donate blood and save lives.