The African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) was established in June 1996 by Beverley De-Gale and Orin Lewis, the parents of former leukaemia sufferer Daniel De-Gale. By way of background, when the charity was set up, Daniel had already been suffering from leukaemia for three years. However shortly before the conception of the charity, Daniel's parents were informed that his only hope of survival was to receive a bone marrow transplant. Due to the fact that bone marrow contains racially specific characteristics, the compatible donor for Daniel could only be found within the Black and Mixed Race population. At the time when this shattering news was revealed, there were around 285,000 registered potential bone marrow donors on the Anthony Nolan register. Unfortunately, only approx. 550 were Black or Mixed Race.
Our initial introduction to the donor recruitment team at The Anthony Nolan Trust was through a telephone call in January 1996 from Beverley De-Gale. She spoke to members of The Anthony Nolan Trust, Linda Hartwell and Kay Bascombe, about Daniel’s situation and then discussed the bigger problem of getting the Black and Mixed Race community to consider registering as donors. Linda and Kay were very concerned at the lack of awareness and willingness to step forward within this community and very much aware that finding donors was an almost impossible task. Together The Anthony Nolan Trust, Beverley and Orin with the assistance of the BBC2 Programme ‘Black Britain’ coordinated the first awareness initiative at the Hackney Empire theatre in east London in March 1996.At the end of the drama performance Beverley addressed the largely Black audience about Daniel’s life or death situation of needing a matching bone marrow donor. The audience were immediately asked to attend a registration session that had been set up outside the theatre by The Anthony Nolan Trust. In total approximately 67 of the attendees were able to register and gave an initial blood sample to see if they could help Daniel; and, if not, to help others in need of lifesaving matches. That was the beginning of our longstanding relationship.
Daniel’s campaign was taken to the Caribbean and Africa; with the help of the ACLT''s Patron, the Duchess of York, the family was interviewed by US television and the newspaper media in an attempt to find Daniel a match. Eventually a matching donor was found in the US and Daniel received his donated bone marrow cells on 16 June 1999. He is now 21 years of age attending university.
The ACLT's main aim is to continue raising awareness and therefore increasing the number of potential donors of Black, Mixed Race and Ethnic Minority descent on The Anthony Nolan Trust and other registers around the world.
We continue to organise and conduct numerous awareness/recruitment drives throughout the UK in conjunction with The Anthony Nolan Trust specifically in predominant Black and Minority Ethnic populated cities and towns.
Our joint efforts continue to enable potential donors to come forward and to be involved in the process of offering hope and a healthy future to someone whose disease may otherwise prove fatal.
The ACLT also provides moral support and assistance to people living with leukaemia and any other bone marrow related illnesses such as multiple myeloma, lymphoma and aplastic anaemia.
By working alongside The Anthony Nolan Trust and other cancer and blood donation organisations many more lives will be saved.
If you would like to get involved with the ACLT, please visit their website, www.aclt.org.
