About ACLT
The objective of the ACLT is to try and do something about the poor representation of the black community and Ethnic Minorities on the UK bone marrow register.
The trust is a voluntary health orientated charity whose existence is to raise awareness within the black community, enabling potential donors to come forward and be involved in the process of offering hope and a healthy future to someone whose disease may otherwise prove fatal.
Over the last 11 years the charity has been uniquely instrumental in highlighting the urgent requirement for people of African, African Caribbean and Mixed Race descent to come forward, against all known cultural and religious reasons, in order to help other individuals who urgently need help.
A blood test will put you on the register and if you ever match with a patient, further blood tests will follow. Bone marrow is a blood like liquid, which can be donated by one person and transplanted into another person in a simple procedure. A person’s bone marrow type is an inherited characteristic and the chance of finding a matching donor for a patient is GREATER if the donor is from the same Racial/Ethnic background.
The ACLT aims to:
Support and assist black people, people of mixed Race suffering from Leukaemia and any other bone marrow related illnesses such as Aplastic Anaemia.
Educate the public about the needs for better services for people suffering from Leukaemia or any other bone marrow diseases.
The ACLT provides practical, financial, home help, counselling, advice and moral support to black people who suffer from Leukaemia and other related illnesses and to assist in locating funds for research.
At present out of approximately 750,000 people on the UK bone marrow register, some 21,000 are of African, African Caribbean or Mixed Race descent. This needs to be more in line with the proportion of African, African Caribbean and people of mixed parentage in the UK. A figure of around 50,000–60,000 would be more fitting due to the larger diversity within the black race.
The charity would utilise funds in the following ways:
To help pay for planned bone marrow registration clinics scheduled in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.
To help towards the chemotherapy/radiation and quality of life costs for internal and overseas Leukaemia sufferers when additional funding is urgently required.
The charity is also involved with raising awareness and recruiting potential donors from many influential organisations such as the Fire Brigade, Royal Mail, BT, CWU, HM Prison Service, Black Police Association, colleges and universities and the National Blood Service.
Our history
The 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, and to highlight why this recruitment is so important, 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 Daniel's 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 or mixed race population. At the time when this shattering news was revealed, there were around 285,000 registered potential bone marrow donors in the UK. Unfortunately, only 550 were black or mixed race.