Students become potential life-savers in stem cell swab campaign

Year twelve students became potential life-savers last week, as a Jewish stem cell donor recruitment campaign came to Immanuel College.

35 pupils joined the national register for donors after swabbing their cheeks during an event last week, organised by the Sue Harris Trust.

The recruitment drive took place in aid of more than 1,000 Jewish people around the world who need an unrelated stem cell donor, to save their life, each year.

Amid concern over a backlog of diagnosis due to the pandemic, Anthony Nolan’s new digital system of recruitment was used to register students in school, allowing sign-ups in a matter of minutes.

Lionel Salama, Secretary of the Sue Harris Trust, said, “it’s great to be back recruiting lifesavers and to see so many students come forward to join the national register. We look forward to rolling out the programme in other schools and at youth movement summer camps”.

Victoria Pritchard, National Partnerships Manager at Anthony Nolan, added, “we’re really grateful to Immanuel College for piloting our new digital recruitment system. It was wonderful to see how easy the students found it to use, and how it speeds up the joining process for potential lifesavers”.

• visit Anthonynolan.org/SueHarrisTrust to order your free swab kit.