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Leigh Turner

Ambassador to Austria and UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Vienna

Part of UK in Turkey

26th March 2013

British Consulate helps with safe blood for Turkey

What is red, liquid and knows no nationality?

The answer of course is blood – something none of us can live without.

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For many years the Turkish Red Crescent has been running a social responsibility project to encourage people to donate blood.  It is called the “Safe Blood Supply Programme”. I was delighted this year that British and Turkish staff members of the British Consulate General in Istanbul volunteered to contribute to the campaign. The Turkish Red Crescent Sancaktepe Branch responded enthusiastically.

Result: on 21 March the Turkish Red Crescent organised a mobile blood collection at the British Consulate-General in Istanbul so that volunteers could contribute to the Red Crescent Safe Blood Supply Programme.  Over a couple of hours, volunteers contributed 70 units of blood – a terrific outcome.

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The Turkish Red Crescent tell us this was the first time they had organised a joint blood donation campaign with a foreign mission in Turkey. We are pleased to have been able to help; and to have signed a protocol on future co-operation.

There are a lot of myths around about blood, including the daft idea that the blood of some people is in some way different from, or better than, that of other people.  I’ll be pleased if this small initiative in Istanbul can help remind us all that blood is a precious commodity which knows no national boundaries.

About Leigh Turner

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of…

I hope you find this blog interesting and, where appropriate, entertaining. My role in Vienna covers the relationship between Austria and the UK as well as the diverse work of the UN and other organisations; stories here will reflect that.

About me: I arrived in Vienna in August 2016 for my second posting in this wonderful city, having first served here in the mid-1980s. My previous job was as HM Consul-General and Director-General for Trade and Investment for Turkey, Central Asia and South Caucasus based in Istanbul.

Further back: I grew up in Nigeria, Exeter, Lesotho, Swaziland and Manchester before attending Cambridge University 1976-79. I worked in several government departments before joining the Foreign Office in 1983.

Keen to go to Africa and South America, I’ve had postings in Vienna (twice), Moscow, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv and Istanbul, plus jobs in London ranging from the EU Budget to the British Overseas Territories.

2002-6 I was lucky enough to spend four years in Berlin running the house, looking after the children (born 1992 and 1994) and doing some writing and journalism.

To return to Vienna as ambassador is a privilege and a pleasure. I hope this blog reflects that.

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