Crystal Palace football club is backing a campaign to encourage more black, Asian and mixed race Londoners to donate bone marrow, blood and organs
There are only about 3,500 blood donors of black Caribbean and African heritage in London, or just 0.6 per cent of all active donors in England and Wales.
The Eagles’ manager Alan Pardew spoke to support the work of the ACLT (African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust), a charity founded in memory of Daniel De-Gale, who died at 21 after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when he was six.
Pardew joined wingers Yannick Bolasie, 25, and Wilfried Zaha, 22, at the club’s Beckenham training ground to promote awareness about the lack of ethnic minority donors on the register.
He said: “There is a nationwide shortage of African and Caribbean organ donors, so I hope that people from these communities feel encouraged to join the Organ Donor Register and support the charity with their life-saving work across stem cell and blood donation.”
Mr De-Gale, from Croydon, had two courses of chemotherapy and countless blood transfusions. He needed a bone marrow transplant but his parents found the chances of a black child finding a matching donor in the UK were one in 250,000, compared with one in five for a white person.
Mr De-Gale eventually found a donor in the US when he was 12 but died nine years later from organ failure. He finished school and university, and became a campaigner to get more people to sign up to the register.
Thanks to the trust set up by his parents, Beverley and Orin, the number of black and minority ethnic bone marrow donors has increased greatly — but many more are needed.
