Race Against Blood Cancer

Race Against Blood Cancer

At a glance

Causes

  • Black, asian and minority ethnic groups
  • Campaigning
  • Local / community

Other details

Organisation type: 
Charity
Geographical remit: 
National - Britain

Objectives

Race Against Blood Cancer's goal is to increase the volume and diversity of people who register for a life-saving stem cell transplant; we believe that everyone should have the equal opportunity of a second chance at life.

Blood cancer (such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma) is the fifth most common cancer and the third biggest cancer killer (claiming more lives than breast and prostate cancer each year).  Stem cell and bone marrow transplants are now regularly used as a potentially curative treatment for blood cancer patients, however, there is only a 25% chance of finding a matching donor in their family, so many people are reliant on a donation from a stranger. 

The chances of finding a donor vary greatly; if you are from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background, you have a significantly lower chance of finding a suitably matched donor.  Even if you are lucky enough to find a donor, your chance of finding the ‘best possible’ match is also considerably reduced in comparison to that of a White, Northern European Patient.

Race Against Blood Cancer raises awareness of the issues, educates people on the donation process and, most importantly recruits potential stem cell donors for the register.  This saves lives. We truly believe that the more volunteers we recruit then the more lives we will save as we can spread our work wide over the UK and recruit more potential life saving donors. 

Activities

Race Against Blood Cancer raises awareness of the issues surrounding donation and educating people on the process of becoming a donor.  In addition, we simplify the sign up process by running recruitment events.

Since the charity’s inception in the summer of 2015, the charity has employed occasional staff and a full time Community Engagement Manager to run donor drives within communities in London, Shropshire and the West Midlands.  This small team has, in turn, recruited a small number of volunteers to raise awareness of the issues and recruit stem cell and bone marrow donors who provide their personal details along with mouth swabs for tissue typing. 

We then pass on these details to our partner organisations, DKMS or Anthony Nolan, which has the infrastructure required to carry out the relevant medical tests and liaise with these potential donors, patients in need and their medical teams, to create a successful match. 

We are extremely proud to say that despite us being so small in stature, the charity has now registered more than 10,000 people with nearly 166 potential donor matches.  Eighteen of these proceeded through to transplant to give a blood cancer patient a second chance at life. 

Without Race Against Blood Cancer, these transplants simply wouldn’t have happened

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