Beverley De Gale

ACLT (African Caribbean Leukemia Trust) founder Beverley De Gale has been awarded an OBE, after launching a campaign in 1996 and working tirelessly since then to recruit bone marrow donors after her son Daniel De Gale developed leukaemia.

Via The Telegraph

Beverley De-Gale, 51, decided to take action in 1996 when she learnt that that her son, Daniel, faced odds of one in 250,000 of finding a donor match as a member of an ethnic minority.

At the time only 550 people on the 285,000-strong UK bone marrow donor register came from an African or Caribbean background making it almost impossible for black people suffering the disease of to find a suitable match. The picture was the same across the world.

With her partner, Orin Lewis, she founded the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust which works to change attitudes, sign up new donors and match would-be donors around the world with sufferers in dire need.

The charity has signed up 35,000 bone marrow donors from the black and mixed race communities and has saved at least 31 lives in the last 14 years. Continue Reading….