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Saving a Stranger is a powerful documentary that highlights the suffering of the thousands of people waiting for bone marrow transplants in the UK. The programme appeals for people from black and ethnic minority groups to join the bone marrow register in order to find a match that can help save lives.
The Observer recommended the programme in its Pick of the Day, saying:
"There are some programmes which are worth catching simply because they tell a good tale and others that are genuinely worth watching because their value extends beyond the general remit of TV".
Yvette's Story
The film focusses on 12-year-old Yvette Gate from Bristol, whose only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant. Yvette suffers from aplastic anaemia. Her bone marrow has stopped functioning, which means she cannot produce her own blood, and has to rely on transfusions to say alive.
 Yvette and her mother
Yvette Gate's website or to know more about the register How Do I Register?
Asma's Campaign
The film also tells the story of inspiring Asma Meer, who lost her three-year old son Ibrahim because they couldn’t find a match for a bone marrow transplant.
 Campaigner Asma Meer
Made in association with the Anthony Nolan Trust and African Caribbean Leukemia Trust, Saving a Stranger is narrated by Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson.
Diverse Donors Needed
As the film demonstrates, more volunteers need to join the bone marrow register and help recruit their friends and colleagues where they work, live and socialize. By getting into particular ethnic communities, these volunteers can play a vital role in adding to the diversity of the register and giving a better chance of survival to desperately ill people like Yvette Gate.
Anthony Nolan Trust
The Anthony Nolan Trust saves lives by recruiting new donors to the UK's most successful bone marrow register as well as undertaking vital research leading to improvements in the effectiveness and safety of bone marrow transplants.
To join the Anthony Nolan Trust's register individuals need to be 18-40 years old in good health and fully committed to undergo the donation procedure if required. The Anthony Nolan Trust specifically needs to recruit more young male donors.
African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust
African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) was established in 1996 by Beverley De-Gale and Orin Lewis, the parents of former leukaemia sufferer Daniel De-Gale. Their aim is to raise awareness and increase black and mixed parentage representation on the UK Bone Marrow registers.
Finding a match is greater if the donor is from the same racial background. After 24 years only 550 black people had ever joined the register. The ACLT has helped raise it to approx. 18,500.
Donors from Ethnic Backgrounds - the Facts.
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