Kaiya Petal, who was diagnosed with Leukaemia earlier this year, is desperately trying to find a blood stem cell match outside of the family to give her the best chance of survival.
The family of Kaiya are appealing to members of the Asian community across the Warwick district to get tested to see if they could be a match for their 5-year-old daughter.
Kaiya’s aunt said “All focus is on getting that match not just for Kaiya but for so many other people who might need it in the future. The campaign has gotten so big and we are so incredibly grateful to have the support.”
If you live in the area there is a donor drive being held in Leamington which will take place on Sunday 10th June at the Community Centre at Shree Krishna Mandir at 10B High Street, Leamington from 9.30am to 5.30pm.
Don’t forget if you can’t make any donor drives but would like to join the register to help blood cancer patients like Kaiya, you can check your eligibility and register online for a home swab kit. See our website for more details www.raceagainstbloodcancer.com/join
Last Sunday Race Against Blood Cancer held a donor drive supporting Flagz Mas Band at Wandsworth Arts Fringe in London, where the team worked hard to sign up more potential lifesaving donors to the blood stem cell register.
We would like to thank all those that showed up to register and to the organisers for allowing us to pitch up and engage with the community. We would also like to give a special thanks to the work of our team members Alex Morrison and Lenah Lang who continue to help those people needing lifesaving transplants.
Media Madness sees our Community Engagement team set a new record at Teads London office.
Teads, a global leader in the video advertising space warmly welcomed our team on Tuesday 6th December. This marked the second drive of Media Madness with the previous record of 97 bone marrow and stem cell donor registrations currently held by Bauer Media.
On the day itself the team registered a willing 60 new donors which was an incredible achievement considering there are only 70 employees in their London office and 65 were in on this particular day.
Despite Bauer Media still topping the Media Madness leaderboard in terms of numbers, Teads set a new record for the per person ratio of those people onsite who came forward to sign up at an impressive 92%. The team at Race Against Blood Cancer couldn’t be any happier with the way the day went, with Teads truly raising the bar in terms of active participation.
A massive thank you to Elle Panes and Jonathan Nash who organised the donor drive for us on the day and did a great job rallying the troops.
The amazing team at Latimer invited Race Against Blood Cancer to their event “Latimer Live” on 27th October held at the ever popular Oval Space in Bethnal Green, London.
Latimer live is an event bringing together the UK’s top emerging talent for a night of live performances and DJ sets. Previous acts have included grime stars Stormzy and Lethal Bizzle.
For those new UK music lovers who have never attended these events before, they come highly recommended. This year’s event had performances from Abracadabra, winner of Best Song at this year’s MOBO awards for Robbery remix with Krept & Konan, Mez, Kojey Radical, Knucks, Snoochie Shy, Chennessey and many more.
The night itself was filled with high energy, good vibes and a lot of dancing. The team signed a total of 32 new donors up which was also great considering the lead time we had in arranging the event. Throughout the night, we also met a number of people who have been affected by blood cancer and were interested to know more on how they could help beyond joining the registry.
This was a great night, full of talent and energy for Race Against Blood Cancer to be present at. We would like to say a massive thank you to Louise, Jack and Alfred at Latimer and to all the people who signed up on the night to help save a life.
Race Against Blood Cancer joins the government backed NCS programme which helps provide students with valuable skills for life.
The National Citizen Service (NCS) is an experience that any 15 to 18 year-old doesn’t want to miss! And with more than 200,000 young people signed up every year, Race Against Blood Cancer and the team were eager to play their part.
So, on Tuesday 5th July, Joe Bates and Alex Morrison traveled to Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands to deliver the first of a four days’ worth of workshops to those enrolled on to the programme.
Giving young people the chance to embark on exhilarating challenges, make a mark and build skills for work and life, this hugely valuable initiative sees young people across the country effectively volunteer their summer to develop a social action project which can have a positive impact on their community.
Joe and Alex delivered four workshops throughout the day to 80 participants. The workshops raised awareness of different types of blood cancer, treatments available and the need for more donors on the registry – especially people from an ethnic minority and mixed heritage background.
On the day the groups were also taught how to carry out a donor drive, with the hope that many of the young volunteers will run their own donor drives over the summer to support Race Against Blood Cancer’s aim of registering another 3,000 potential lifesaving donors before Christmas.
Alex Morrison, the charities Community Engagement lead said “it was a fantastic day and we spoke with some really motivated and enthusiastic young people. They were a credit to the staff and we really hope that they can now go away and help us reach our targets. We will certainly help them in any way we can and I’m excited to deliver more workshops over the coming months”.
Jemma Knight, NCS Coach was equally as pleased with how well the students embraced the day “The young people were really inspired from the workshop, they found the talk interesting and some of the group have already set their sights on running a Donor drive as their social action project. We had a young girl within the group who suffers from a blood condition herself, and she said she felt encouraged throughout and really enjoyed the session”.
If you feel that you or someone you know would like to organise or attend a Race Against Blood Cancer workshop, please contact us at info@raceagainstbloodcancer.com
Another busy weekend is lined up for us as we will be heading to Kids Fest in Shrewsbury on 23rd/24th April.
It will be a very busy weekend for our Race Against Blood Cancer engagement team who will be at Shropshire Kids Fest on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th April. With entertainment for kids of all ages, it will be a great opportunity for us to raise awareness for the #Match4Tommy campaign which started when 4 year old Tommy was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in January this year.
Crowds of over 10,000 people, including children of all ages, are expected over the course of the two day event with many activities to keep the kids busy while the parents and teenagers from ages of 16+ take 5 minutes to sign up as new stem cell and bone marrow donors.
We are still looking for volunteers to join the team, if you are free and would like to help spread the word and have fun, please reach out to ben.westwood@raceagainstbloodcancer.com
You can also help us by spreading the word and posting within your networks. As a recent registrant told us at one of our latest events – “I registered after seeing the RABC posts. Even though I had researched stem cell and cord blood when pregnant I had no idea becoming a donor and finding a match could be done through a simple cheek swab.”
Follow us on social media and stay tuned for news, photos and updates throughout the event!
Race Against Blood Cancer is recruiting volunteers to take on the AJ Bell London Triathlon in August
On 6th and 7th August, Race Against Blood Cancer will be fielding a team of “triathletes” of all levels and backgrounds to take part in the AJ Bell London Triathlon. The London Triathlon is the world’s largest, attracting over 13,000 participants and 30,000 spectators each year.
Race Against Blood Cancer will have entrants in all categories over the weekend, including the full Olympic distance, the shorter sprint distance and the team relay.
It promises to be a great weekend where we hope to raise huge amounts of awareness and of course, sponsorship which will in turn help us save more lives!
If you are interested in entering this year’s event with us, there is still time! And don’t panic if you have never done a triathlon before, with a variety of distances, routes and wave categories to choose from, there is something for everyone!
For more information on how to participate in this year’s event with us, simply contact Ben who will fill you in on all the details.
