Local 4-year-old and her family are set to be honoured by blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan, at a digital awards celebration this month.
Esha Nadeswaran, 4-years-old and her family, from Gants Hill, East London, have been shortlisted for the Inspiring Hope award at the Anthony Nolan Supporter Awards 2021. Esha and her family have inspired over 1000 potential donors to join the Anthony Nolan stem cell register, most of whom are from minority ethnic backgrounds. Anthony Nolan desperately need more ethnic minority donors to join the register
In May 2021, Esha was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia at Great Ormond Street Hospital. After two unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy, her family had been told her only chance of survival would be to have an urgent stem cell transplant from a matching stem cell donor.
On hearing that people from minority ethnic backgrounds have a more difficult time finding matching stem cell donors, they did everything they could to tackle this inequality. 71% of transplant recipients who are White Caucasian receive the best match, but this drastically drops to around 37% for transplant recipients who are from an ethnic minority background. A person’s stem cell match is most likely to come from someone with the same ethnic background as them.
Hearing this unfortunate news, Esha's family sprang into action, mobilising a huge network of supporters and launching the campaign #ForEsha in September 2021.
They focused on raising awareness in the South Asian community, highlighting the need for stem cell donors for patients, like Esha, who are from minority ethnic backgrounds. In an incredibly short amount of time, the #ForEsha Instagram page gained over 10k followers with another 2k following on Facebook, resulting in a significant amount of online donor registrations throughout Esha's appeal.
Following this momentum, the family organised a recruitment event at the London School of Economics 3 weeks later which recruited over 100 new donors and also saw large numbers of volunteers turn out to support the running of the event. What was truly amazing is that 75% of those donors recruited identified as being from minority ethnic backgrounds - this is a level rarely seen in recruitment activity.
The family were focused on not only finding a donor for Esha but to ensure other patients of minority ethnic background would have an easier time finding donors.
Thankfully, the family were overjoyed in November 2021 when Esha found a donor and received a transplant. Since then, they have continued to share inspiring and authentic updates, showing the highs and the lows of transplant and always encouraging others to step up and make a difference.
The family will continue to raise awareness to improve the proportion of ethnic minority communities on the stem cell register. In May, Esha’s aunt, Lavanya, is doing a 100km trek in the Sahara Desert to fundraise for charities and teams that have supported Esha and her family so far!
