Hello, My name is Niah Lombo and I am a ninth grader at Science Leadership Academy. I am doing a project for my English class about an issue that concerns me, and I have to write three blogs about it, I am back for my third and final blog post.  For my YATW (You And The World) project I choose to raise awareness for the shortage of donors for Hispanic, African american, and mixed people.  If you would like to read more about my issue in my past blog posts please click here for blog post 1 and click here for blog post 2. After learning more about my issue it was time for me to take action and get my hands dirty (literally) and step up to help my cause.

I knew that for my agent of change I wanted to do more than just bring in stuff because people will most likely forget. That was too much of a hassle to do, I wanted to do something that will get a lot of teenagers excited and for them to learn something. Then I had an idea! What better way to draw in a crowd then Food! So on May 15, 2014 I sold food at lunch to raise money and donate it a charity that helps support my cause. My main goal was to draw people in with the food so I could inform them about my cause and collect money for the donation. My lunch periods are longer than usual schools lunch periods are (1 hour and 5 minutes) so that gave me a lot of time to get to talk to everyone about my cause and how I am trying to take action. What shocked me the most is that 95% of the people that had asked what I was selling food for (Hispanic rice, baked chicken, and salad) was not aware of the shortage of donors for Hispanics, African Americans. After I told them what I was doing they wanted to learn more about what I was doing, so I showed them to my blog post 1 and 2.

I felt good to know that I was already making a change and that was getting the people aware of what is happening that you wouldn't see on the news or in the newspaper. I wish I could have done more for my agent of change , but I did raise a lot of money for the foundation I am planing on doing it again.  My hopes were to raise money and inform/aware people of the shortage of donors for African Americans, Hispanics, and mixed people; and I am glad to say that I did exactly that. I had raised $76 and I plan on holding on to that Intel I do my second agent of change and donate everything all together.

There are a few things I wish I could have done better. I wish I would have started my agent of change earlier so I could have done more. I also wish I would have done a little gathering that would inform/aware more people on what my issue is. Now all I need to do is give donate the money and I will have completed my YATW project (not exactly). Even though school is almost over and I will be going into the next grade this issue is important to me and my family and I plan on continuing my effort to aware people. Overall, I am so glad that this project was given to my class and if I got the chance to do it again I would. It was a fantastic experience and I felt like I learned more about me and others doing this project. Thank you for reading and I hope you all learned something even if it was from my blog or my classmates blog.

Hello it’s me again, Niah Lombo and I am back for round two of my YATW issue. In my blog post #1 , I talked about my issue which was the shortage of donors for African American, Hispanics, and mixed people. Since then I have found more stories of people with cancer looking for donors with one and a million chance of finding one. Lewis Dyche was diagnosed with leukaemia  and after a global search he finds his one in a million bone marrow donor. To read more about his story click here.  

Now it’s my turn to do my own original research and I wanted to learn more about Donors, and then I thought who would know more about donors? Doctors! So I schedule an interview with Dr.Carmen Febo. Dr. Carmen Febo is a primary care physician and even though she does not deal directly with Donors, etc. she was a great help with the questions and being able to let me interview her with with the short notice. The interview helped me have a better understanding of the importance of finding a donor, being a donor, and the effects of being a donor.

Interview:

Me: What is your chance of living if you find a match donor?  

Dr. Carmen Febo: If you have deadly disease, like kidney failure, heart failure, or liver failure, your life would depend on finding a donor.  The chances of survival have many determinants that include weather this is a living donor, or a dead donor, how close a match it is, how many other conditions you have, how good a surgical candidate you are, etc.  Many of the conditions are better understood now and we have better medicines to combat infection for example, or rejection.  But, what is true is that without the transplant the patient do not have a chance.

That was one of my questions for Dr. Carmen Febo. This hit me hard as it made me realize that a persons life is in the hands of a stranger, and that stranger has no idea how important they are. Its not their fault if they didn't know but only if they could have gotten tested to see if they could save a life.

Margot was 17-months old when she was diagnosed with two of the rarest cancers. But since her parents are mixed she is having trouble finding a match donor. Click here to read her story.

Robin Roberts (left) is a breast cancer survivor and find her match from her sister.  She was aware that because of her race she would have a hard time finding a match donor. Read more about her story here.

That is it for now, the next time you guys will hear from me is when I do my agent of change. What can I do to make change happened? My plan is to host an event to help raise awareness for my issue and will be hosting fundraisers that will be donated to find the cure for cancer. Also I will be writing a letter to Robin Roberts about my cause and because ABC news is having opportunities for people who wants to make a difference to be featured on the show. I will submit my story and how I want to make a difference, and if anything does happened before my blog post #3 I will let you guys know on here.

BLOG #1

               The Shortage of Donors for African American,Latino and Mixed people with cancer

Hi my name is Niah Lombo and I go to Science Leadership Academy. I am a student in Miss.Dunn’s English class; In this class we were asked to research issues that are important to us and then express how we could bring awareness to others by starting a blog about it... This is the first of three blogs that I will be posting my thoughts & concerns. I choose to blog about the sad statistics of the shortage of bone marrow donors for African American,Latino and Mixed races with cancer.I am trying to bring awareness to this issue so more people will donate and save someones life.

Everyday thousands of people die from cancer because they can’t find a donor match.When you are diagnosed with cancer your family members have a 30% chance of being a match but the rest 70% is relied on strangers. Patients are most likely to find a compatible donor within their own racial and ethnic background.

"The truth is, when people of different backgrounds marry and produced offspring, it creates more types that are harder to match."

I am interested in this topic because when I was 9 years old my older sister was diagnosed with leukemia and later died because they could not find a donor in time.The doctors informed us because she was Latina, her chances were slim to find a match. There are so many other people with the same story; for example there is J’sons and Leni who is still looking for a match.The main issue is that minority children are dying because there are mainly Caucasian donors.

little Leni Hsiao, a 4-month-old girl who has endured incredible challenges since her birth.

This topic is significant because more children of ethnic backgrounds are diagnosed with cancer, and most of them die. In 2010 more than 400,000 African Americans, 300,000 Hispanic, and 290,000 mixed women’s died from cancer. Caucasians had the lowest number for death in 2010.

"So many donor programs has been pushing for years to recruit more racial minorities and mixed race donors. So far, multiracial volunteers make up just 3 percent of the 7 million people on the registry"

Caucasian patients have an almost 90% chance of finding a good match.  “ But minority patients have only about 45% chance” said Carol Gillespie, executive director of the Asian American Donor program in Alameda.

Percentage of ethnic groups on the national Registry:

• African American, 7%

• Asian/Pacific Islander, 7%

• Hispanic, 10%

• Native American, 1%

• Multi-Racial, 4%

• Caucasian, 73%

What I wonder is that how many more people need to die before everyone sees the issue that African Americans, Hispanics and mixed people are fighting for their lives every day hoping to find a match? As I go on with this project I hope to find ways that I could help to build awareness on this topic.

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