Sue Harris Trust wins award for promoting stem cell register among ethnically diverse
Blood cancer charity honoured with prestigious Minority Ethnic Advocate Award by Anthony Nolan (formerly Anthony Nolan Trust)
The Sue Harris Campaign has won an award for its efforts to highlight the need for more stem cell donors within the Jewish community.
The charity, founded by the late Sue Harris and her friends in 1993, was honoured with the Minority Ethnic Advocate Award at the annual Anthony Nolan Supporter Awards (ANSAs) on the 14th June at the Tower of London.
Anthony Nolan, formerly known as the Anthony Nolan Trust, saves the lives of people with blood cancer.
The Minority Ethnic Advocate award is presented to a supporter who has championed the Anthony Nolan stem cell register within minority ethnic communities, encouraging people from within these groups to join the register and support Anthony Nolan’s work.
The ANSAs have been taking place since 2013, and this was the first in-person awards since 2019 due to the pandemic.
In the last 12 months, The Sue Harris Trust has heavily focused on recruitment and advocacy in ethnically diverse communities, for Anthony Nolan, for patients and for donors. Their events have included a successful Jewish Swab Week in 2022, the return of their recruitment campaign in Israel and introducing Anthony Nolan to Luton council, leading to the successful delivery of Luton Swab week.
Lionel Salama, Secretary of The Sue Harris Trust said: “We are honoured to receive this recognition for our efforts to ensure that all patients, regardless of their heritage, receive an equal a chance of an unrelated donor.
“We are very proud of our work in the Jewish community over the last 30 years and are ready to help other ethnic minorities achieve similar success in recruiting stem cell donors. With the urgent appeal for a life-saving donor for London Jewish patient James, the best way to celebrate this award would be for anyone aged 17-55 to come forward to get swabbed. Just visit sueharristrust.org for a list of swabbing events or to order a postal swab kit.”
Henny Braund, chief executive of Anthony Nolan, said: “The Sue Harris Trust is a hugely deserving winner of this award; the charity’s incredible support and passion for our work is a fantastic example of our charity, which is built on making lifesaving connections.
“By building the stem cell donor register we are curing blood cancer together. We can give families hope and give more people a future”.
The Sue Harris Trust has been raising awareness of the need for more stem cell donors within the Jewish Community for 30 years. It was started in 1992, when 30-year-old law student Sue Harris was rushed into hospital with severe stomach pains.
She was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia, and soon after began the campaign to find her stem cell donor. At the start of her campaign, there were only 48 Jewish people on the register; by the end, Sue had helped to recruit more than 15,000.
A donor was found for Sue but, two days before she was due to have her transplant, the donor was unable to proceed for medical reasons. By the time she received her transplant from a second donor, it was too late, and the transplant was unsuccessful. Sue passed away on February 19th, 1997.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
