The KCL Marrow Society have been rewarded with a national charity award for their recruitment of BAME stem cell donors

A KCL society has won a huge national award at the Anthony Nolan Supporter's Awards at the House of Commons this year. The KCL Marrow Society have worked tirelessly in raising awareness for the pioneering blood cancer charity, and KCL's strengths lied in matching donors.

Anthony Nolan is a charity set up to support and cure people with blood cancer, and rely heavily on people of ethnic backgrounds to be able to match potential stem cell donors to blood cancer and disorder patients.

This is where the KCL Marrow Society have succeeded beyond compare. They have recruited an impressive amount of BAME donors to make up for the fact that only 20 per cent of Black, Asian or ethnic minorities receive their best matches.

In a statement discussing the award, the president of KCL Marrow Society Emma McKee has said "We as a group are lucky enough to study in a city as diverse as London, it simply made sense to use this to our advantage. We teamed up with many of our university's own cultural and religious societies to help spread the word and we held recruitment events alongside them.

“I believe that even if you are not able to encourage everyone to sign up, by educating them about how hard it can be to find stem cell donors for BAME patients we have still succeeded in educating someone."

The society attended events not just at university, but across London in order to increase awareness. They attended events such as the Asian Wedding Exhibition and Comic Con (who knew), but travelled finally to the House of Commons where they received their award from the chairman of Anthony Nolan, Simon Dyson.

Please support The KCL Marrow Society through their Facebook and their fundraiser.