Anthony Nolan visits the Sixth Form

On Thursday 13 February, a week after their lectures to Years 12 and 13, the charity Anthony Nolan returned to Challoner’s to recruit new donors to their register. In the lecture a week prior, a representative from the charity spoke about the life-saving work that Anthony Nolan does every day, to help people suffering from blood cancer or blood disorders find a stem cell donor. Anthony Nolan operates a world-leading register comprised of over 900,000 people around the world, ready to donate stem cells if required. As well as their register, the charity conducts research into stem cell transplants to improve patients’ quality of life when undergoing treatment, and to increase the rate of survival following a transplant. In the past, three of Challoner’s students donated stem cells to the charity, and many others have been positively impacted by the work Anthony Nolan is doing.

Following this lecture, Anthony Nolan revisited, and incredibly, 129 Challoner’s Sixth Form students signed up to the register, marking a record for any school Anthony Nolan has ever visited! According to Mr Colquhoun, Director of the Sixth Form, “It has been fantastic to see the engagement from DCGS students with signing up to be on the register for Anthony Nolan. It is a very important charity and is extra special for us here at DCGS since Archit Rakhade (Class of 2023) survived leukemia - twice - due to being matched with a donor through Anthony Nolan. It is also amazing to hear from them that three ex-students who had previously added their names to the donor register have been matched with people.”