It looks like South Korea will be the first Asian country that Facebook will tap in their ongoing organ donation awareness initiative. South Korean news site Yonhap is reporting that Facebook is planning to allow users in the country to display their organ donor status by Wednesday. Apparently, Facebook worked with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to facilitate this launch.

Facebook first launched the organ donor awareness initiative back in May. Participating is simple, really. All you have to do is go to your Timeline, add a new life event, select the health and wellness category, and then choose “Organ Donor.” There, you can add the state, date, and back story surrounding your decision to become a donor. There’s also a link to officially register to be an organ donor right on the event box, if you’ve yet to do it.

To Facebook, it’s all about spreading the word. What better way to show that becoming an organ donor is a smart and popular decision than to make it commonplace across a network of nearly 1 billion users?

“More than 114,000 people in the United States, and millions more around the globe, are waiting for the heart, kidney or liver transplant that will save their lives. Many of those people – an average of 18 people per day – will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need. Medical experts believe that broader awareness about organ donation could go a long way toward solving this crisis,” says Facebook.

The ability to broadcast your organ donor status on your Timeline first launched in the U.S. It’s now available in Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, and the UK.

[Yonhap via The Next Web]