| Saving a Stranger – new Community Channel
doc appeals for black and ethnic minority groups to
save lives by joining bone marrow register
Saving a Stranger is
a powerful, heart-wrenching documentary that highlights
the suffering of the thousands of people waiting for
bone marrow transplants in the UK. This Community Channel
exclusive, which broadcasts Thursday, October 19th at
9pm (repeated Sunday, October 22nd at 10pm), aims to
inspire people from asian, black and ethnic minority
groups to join the bone marrow register in order to
find a match that can help save lives.
The film introduces us to the plight
of 12-year-old Yvette Gate from Bristol, whose only
chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant. Yvette
suffers from aplastic anaemia. Her bone marrow has stopped
functioning, which means she cannot produce her own
blood, and has to rely on transfusions to say alive.
Yvette originates from the Gambia and is more likely
to find a match from someone of the same ethnic origin.
But there is a desperate shortage of all bone marrow
donors and a particular shortage of donors from black
and ethnic minority groups.
Yvette’s parents, Mary and David Gate,
are becoming increasingly desperate to find a bone marrow
match for Yvette. They are pinning all their hopes on
a bone marrow registration clinic that has taken months
of organisation. The film also concentrates on the inspiring
Asma Meer, who lost her three-year old son Ibrahim because
they couldn’t find a match for a bone marrow transplant.
Asma is now a dedicated campaigner,
raising awareness and trying to recruit more donors
onto the bone marrow register. The film also introduces
us to Roy, who goes through the process of donating
his bone marrow to a stranger and Mark, who against
all the odds finds a donor and beats leukaemia. Made
in association with the Anthony Nolan Trust and African
Caribbean Leukemia Trust, Saving a Stranger is narrated
by Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson, who has a personal interest
in this subject.
Saving a Stranger is calling out for
more volunteers to join the bone marrow register and
help recruit their friends and colleagues where they
work, live and socialize. By getting into particular
ethnic communities, these volunteers can play a vital
role in adding to the diversity of the register. A clinic
can then be organized in that person’s location (community
centre, mosque, workplace) and blood samples taken from
the volunteers. They are then on the register, giving
a better chance of survival to desperately ill people
like Yvette Gate.
Article provided by FNIK
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