The Sunflower Fund co-ordinates and arranges awareness drives to enable the SABMR to increase. The registry is currently at over 64,000 and the need is to expand it to 100,000. Although more donors between the ages of 18 and 50 are urgently needed, the SABMR desperately needs volunteers from key areas of the community.

Due to current shortages, you are even more precious if you are male and/or from a black, asian or mixed race ethnic background.

Daily Ongoing Donor Recruitment:

• The established and most effective procedure for donor recruitment is to refer interested potential donors to The Sunflower Fund toll-free call centre at 0800 12 10 82.
• The Sunflower Fund Call Centre will establish whether or not the caller complies with the relevant criteria to become a bone marrow stem cell donor and will also inform the caller of his/her rights and obligations as a donor.
• Once a caller has been classified as a suitable donor, they will be issued with a donor number and / or payment instructions and directed to their nearest South African National Blood Service (SANBS) fixed donor site.
• This process is tried and tested by both The Sunflower Fund and the SANBS clinics and laboratories and works to all parties' satisfaction.
• All potential donors, and in particular the family and friends of leukaemia sufferers involved in bone marrow stem cell searches, are strongly encouraged to follow this process. It is the most effective process in place for all parties concerned and ensures that all donors are well informed and committed.

Click here for Donor Recruitment Policy.

Male Shortage

Only 45% of the donors currently on the SABMR are male. Inadequate access to males is a serious problem because:

• Males are generally more able to provide adequate quantities of blood stem cells that are required for transplant
• Males are much less likely to suffer from anaemia, a condition which would prohibit a volunteer from being able to donate
• It is not possible to donate bone marrow during and up to one year after pregnancy
• If there is a choice of a donor for a patient, a male donor may be preferred

Ethnic Origin

Ethnic origin (Heritage) is important when matching donors and patients. The “markers” that are tested when searching for a match are genetically inherited and often unique to a particular race. Simply, there are currently not enough volunteers on the Register from 211 ethnic groups that make up our rainbow nation. This includes African, African-Carribean, Asian, Chinese, Jewish, Eastern European, Mediterranean as well as donors of mixed ethnic background.

Help to Save Lives

By joining the registry you may be able to save the life or lives of others within your community who might otherwise be unsuccessful, in finding a match.

We are appealing to businesses, schools and the man in the street, to come forward and deposit funds into our bank account so that we can continue to take samples over the next few years and make a real effort to change things, expand the size of the registry and be in a position to help children and many others suffering from leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders.

The Sunflower Fund is working together with Nestlé by setting up donor drives at all their offices nationally. Nestlé is committed to pay for each staff member that is willing to become a bone marrow stem cell donor.

The first drive was done together with SANBS who do regular blood drives at Nestlé on Tuesday 29th August at Nestlé Head Office in Randburg. Staff members who came to donate blood were told about The Sunflower Fund and how one can become a donor. A lot of interest was shown and we were fortunate enough to get new bone marrow stem cell donors to join the registry.

This will be an ongoing event with Nestlé nationally for the next few months to try and increase the Registry and enable us to help those patients looking for a bone marrow transplant in order to survive.

This initiative was started by some staff members who are friends of Cari Boucher. She was looking for an unrelated match and has since had a successful bone marrow stem cell transplant.

This has encouraged Nestlé to carry on with this worthy cause by continually encouraging staff  to become donors and help other patients still waiting for a bone marrow match.