Sue Harris campaign helps to recruit more than 1,000 donors
Student recruited for myeloid leukaemia register is a donor this month - PLUS - how YOU can help in emergency Purim swab appeal for Syndey-based father of two
The Sue Harris Campaign, founded by the late Sue Harris and her friends in 1993, has held its annual Jewish Swab Week.
The event took place in sixthforms in 10 schools across London and Manchester, as well as an expanded programme in Gateshead in four yeshivot and two girls’ seminaries.
Between the two events, the charity, which has played a major role in the worldwide effort to recruit Jewish stem cell donors, registered over 1,000 potential life-saving donors.
In wonderful news for the organisation, a donor recruited in 2022 is donating his stem cells.
Chananya Landau, recruited at Menorah Grammar School for Boys, said: “Just a few months ago, I found out that I was a full match for someone and here I am doing the stem cell donation now. It’s super easy and it doesn’t take more than a couple of days – it’s an amazing thing to do, you are saving a life. You have no idea what you could do for the world. I hope you all go ahead and join the register.”
The news of Chananya’s donation comes alongside news of six other students recruited in recent years by the campaign who are also known to have donated their stem cells.
Natalie Deller, coordinator of the Sue Harris Campaign said: “It’s fantastic to see our campaign delivering lifesaving opportunities. For those considering joining the stem cell register, individuals like Chananya are exemplars of how the small act of swabbing your cheek can make the vital difference.”
A fortnight before Jewish Swab Week, the Sue Harris Campaign initiated a pilot of its recruitment model in Luton, one of the UK’s three most super diverse communities. Blood cancer patients from other ethnic minorities or of mixed heritage, in need of a matching unrelated stem cell donor, have vastly inferior chances compared to their white counterparts. This is because 70% of all registered stem cell donors are white, even though 88% of the world’s population isn’t.
Running a Swab Week in Luton’s sixth form college and at the University of Bedfordshire resulted in 405 young Lutonians joining the register, of whom over 83% were not of a white European background.
This represents an increase of almost 55% in the diverse ethnic donors from Luton now on the national register.
EMERGENCY APPEAL LAUNCHED FOR SYDNEY FATHER OF TWO
SUE HARRIS CAMPAIGN WILL RECRUIT AT PURIM EVENTS
Murray Foltyn aged 41, formerly of Hampstead, now living in Sydney, Australia, urgently needs an unrelated stem cell donor to help save his life.
Married to Claudia and with two young children – Jamie (3 years old) and Georgia (just 9 months old), Murray’s potential lifesaver is likely to share his Ashkenazi background and have Czech or Russian ancestors. Indeed, he can trace his family back to the village of Trnava (today part of Slovakia) or Morava Ostrava (today close to the border of Poland).
The Sue Harris Campaign will be running recruitment drives on the evening of Monday 6th March at Purim events at several sites in London and also at Jewish societies across the country.
For further details and as well as how to order a postal swab kit if you are unable to attend one of these in-person events, click here: sueharristrust.org/murray/
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