A bold initiative to get more black South Africans to register on the Bone Marrow Register was launched in Nelson Mandela Bay on Wednesday.
The Masakhane Bone Marrow Initiative is a project of the Igazi Foundation, the only haemotological NGO in the country dedicated to improving blood cancer and blood disease services in South Africa.
South Africa's bone marrow register consists of more than 60 000 names, but fewer than 5000 thousand are black donors.
Zodwa Dube of the Igazi Foundation says they want to increase that number.
"The thing is we need to stop thinking that it's not my problem. It is our problem as black people. We need to realise that if we can't find donors amongst ourselves it will be difficult to find anywhere else. The chances are very, very few that you'll find a donor across a different race," she said.
Dube said they will be having a big drive at Baywest Mall on the 19th of July where they're trying to sign up between 50 and 100 donors and "we're trying to make it a world first for black donors."
She said that being a bone marrow donor is making a big commitment to that process. "Me collecting your blood does not mean that I'm going to use it today. I could need you in 10 years to you have to be committed," she said.
Dube said that they have three to four contact sessions to make sure that the donor has really thought about it.
According to Thulani Madonsela of the Eastern Cape Health Department, there are some cultural matters to overcome.
"In our culture when you say that people have to donate bone marrow and when you explain to them they say can you really take blood from one person and give it to another person. So, they don't understand that you need to contribute a certain part of your blood to be given to people as a bone marrow contribution," he said.
Perhaps the most poignant appeal came from cancer survivor, Yolanda Bukani, who did not have a donor and doctors had to rely on her own stem cells to save her life.
Bukani was a student at Rhodes University when she was diagnosed. Speaking at the launch of the initiative at the Love Life Centre in Kwanobuhle, Uitenhage, Bukani spoke of the difficult time she had been through during chemotherapy and ultimately undergoing a bone marrow transplant.
Twenty-six-year-old Bukani, a mother of a young son, did not have a family donor and doctors used her own stem cells in her treatment.
"My message is that it is very important that we get more black donors to donate marrow. At the moment there is a very big shortage of black donors and if it weren't for me having to use my own stem cells I wouldn't have been able to have a donor because I have no siblings so I would have required a stranger to donate marrow for me so it's really important for people to donate marrow," she said.
Cancer survivor Yolanda Bukani.
