PLEASE CLICK ON THE ICON IN THE RED BOX TO READ THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT WHICH WILL HELP TO GIVE YOU FURTHER BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
As Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the ACLT, this request from me is to kindly ask for your help and assistance towards finding potential life saving donors for patients in need of the ‘gift of life’. The ACLT has for many years been successfully undertaking educational Bone Marrow/Blood presentations in schools, colleges and universities with an emphasis on Black and Ethnic Minority increase in recruitment of potential donors. Well this ACLT initiative has now successfully been merged into a national 'Register & Be a Lifesaver' (R&B) – Education Project which delivers talks/presentations to 17/18 year olds on bone marrow, blood and organ donation at schools with 6th Forms, 6th Form Colleges and Further Education Colleges.
The project is the legacy of Journalist, Adrian Sudbury who died from leukaemia at the age of 27. He had spent the last few months of his life campaigning vigorously for better education and information for young people on the importance of bone marrow donation. His passion and his ‘baldy blog’ reached the attention of the Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) and the then Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson MP, both of whom met with Adrian before his death in August 2008 just a few months before we lost our dear beloved Daniel De-Gale in October 2008.
The Register & Be a Lifesaver campaign has been set up by The Anthony Nolan Trust, NHS Blood & Transplant and the Sudbury family to fulfil Adrian's dying wish and has been rolled out successfully to many regional areas to a fixed timescale to educate and change the attitudes of young people towards bone marrow, blood and organ donation.
I have been given the prestigious task of monitoring and controlling the largest section of the project, the Greater London region to mainly address the major shortage in donors from black and other ethnic minority communities. The campaign's overriding message is that with more young people becoming donors many more lives will be saved. A message clearly in line with the aims and objectives of the ACLT, and the longstanding legacy of Daniel De-Gale. Hence I will be tailoring the training and personal mentoring to reflect the huge impact Daniel has made to this initiative and his great legacy will also be reflected alongside Adrian’s in a generic PowerPoint presentation, which will enable new volunteers to personalise their talks around their own racial/ethnic experiences.
The timescales for the presentations will be between September and December 2010, and all day (one off) training will take place on Saturday 12th June, Sunday 4th July and Saturday 14th August in Central London. My role as the Education Project Mentor will be to mentor new volunteer presenters who are committed to and passionate about donation and helping schools to inspire their young people to think seriously about becoming donors.
Due to the high number of Ethnic Minorities within the London region I will be training volunteers to present their talks with a high emphasis and slant on the need for Black and Asian donors. I (and other key presenters) will personally train you at the training sessions (and if necessary be at the actual school) to help you deliver your unique presentation and enable you to go forward and give a talk relevant to any of the following personal experience or medical skill sets:
• Individual presentations
• Buddies presentations (2 volunteers assisting each other)
• Individuals personally touched directly or indirectly by Blood, Bone Marrow or Organ donation
Volunteers will be provided with everything they need to do the short talks (including times, dates, locations, contacts and personal backup from me and a team at the Anthony Nolan Trust), which are either delivered at Assemblies or to class groups, you will also be covered for Travel expenses.
In the red box at the top of this page (please click) documents are attached which will help to give you some background to the project. Some of the key personal benefits that will emanate from being part of this project will be some of the following:
Volunteers Benefits
• Signing up new future bone marrow donors, organ and regular blood donors
• Learning new skills
• Overcoming fears of speaking in public
• Increase in overall Communication skills
• A feeling of giving back to the community and overcoming the negative stereotypes around young people, especially those from a Black and Minority Ethnic background
6th Form Students Benefits
• The lives being saved
• The removal of the ignorance about this subject matter
• The removal of the Myths, Fears and Taboos about this subject matter i.e. “haven’t got time” responses, needle phobias, lack of trust, religious distortion, etc
• By education and positive persuasion the overturning of the concerns
• The confidence to step forward and donate
If you would like to become a volunteer for the ‘Register & Be a Lifesaver’ Education Project please email me ASAP at orin@aclt.org with a reply. The more volunteers that we have onboard the higher the profile of the educational project and ultimately your assistance will enable us all to save lives at a faster rate.
Best Regards
