New Film Highlights Need For Black Living Organ Donors

[Clark]

http://zippedmultimedia.com/2014/06/28/new-film-highlights-need-for-black-organ-donors/9191

New Film Highlights Need For Black Organ Donors

IF YOU were asked to donate a kidney or blood to a friend or person in need, would you do it?

Judging by the statistics, the answer to that question for most people in Britain’s black community would be a definite no.

According to recent figures from the NHS Blood and Transplant service, 66 per cent of black and minority ethnic (BME) communities living in the UK refuse to give permission to remove the organs of loved ones who have died to be donated compared to 43 per cent of the rest of the population.

Numbers are also low for living donors.

However patients from BME communities are more likely to need an organ transplant than the rest of the UK because they are more susceptible to illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and certain forms of hepatitis, which may result in organ failure and the need for a lifesaving transplant.

As a result, such patients often have to wait a year longer for a kidney transplant than a white patient and many may die waiting.

CAMPAIGNS

Despite several awareness raising campaigns by the NHS aimed at BME communities over the last decade and the efforts of charities like the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) to get more black people on the donor register, fear, ignorance, and cultural barriers to donating organs remain.

Now one woman has decided to try a different approach.

Dela Idowu, head of Gift of Living Donation (GOLD), an independent agency that supports people wishing to become living donors, has just completed a new film drama about organ donation.

We Are Family tells the story of an African Caribbean family, the Williams, who face an emotional rollercoaster to try and save the life of a loved one diagnosed with kidney failure.

The family find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that family member Darren, a 22-year-old student has been diagnosed with kidney failure. The film captures their emotional struggles and fears as Darren’s siblings wrestle with a decision to come forward as living donors for their younger brother.

The film, which Idowu wrote, produced and funded, despite having no previous experience in film-making, is set to launch on July 1 at the Lexi Theatre in Brent, north west London.

ENGAGE

Following the launch, there are plans to take a smaller edit of the film into schools.

Idowu’s decision to make the film was inspired by what she felt was a need to find more creative ways to engage African and Caribbean audiences about a topic that is often not discussed.

She told The Voice: “There are so many reasons why black people don’t donate organs. There’s culture, there’s religion, there’s fear but the one thing that stood out for me was the lack of information. A lot of organ donation campaigns aimed at the black community are asking them to do something they really don’t know much about.


DEBATE: We Are Family aims to get black people talking about an issue that is often shunned

“We come from countries and cultures in Africa and the Caribbean where organ donation is quite alien. We’re now settled in the west but we’ve brought that viewpoint with us. If you ask someone from an African Caribbean background to donate an organ, chances are they are not going to do it and they won’t know anyone who has.”

She continued: “For me, the big question was how can we change people’s perception and thinking? Then the idea to do a film just popped into my head. Knowing how much black people love to watch films I thought ‘why not use film, something visual, as a way of communicating this message?’ It’s something different, innovative and culturally relevant to our community. I’ve never written a script, never done anything like this before but it’s the passion and drive I have to improve the lives of people who need a transplant that made me go forward.”

Making We Are Family was no easy task. After trying to convince several organisations of the worth of the project in a bid to get financial backing, Idowu was turned down. This led her to put nearly £7000 of her own money into the film.

When writing the script, she enlisted the help of long-time friend Cleveland Norris. A BT engineer, Norris who also had no background in film-making. However Idowu felt he could help bring the perspective of the average black Briton who may be sceptical about organ donation.

Norris said: “I got involved with We are Family whilst discussing how we could encourage more black people to come forward as donors and the idea of a short film came up. However we had no idea about script writing. We would write a draft and get mixed feedback but we took the criticism on board and used it positively when rewriting each new version. As a telecom engineer co-writing We Are Family in my spare time has been a worthwhile and rewarding project to be involved in and has raised my awareness on the subject.”

We Are Family is also inspired by Idowu’s own family story.

DIAGNOSED

Her older brother Tayo, 56, was diagnosed with kidney failure in December 2011 just before they were due to fly out to Nigeria to attend their father’s funeral.

She recalls: “I’ve always been a naturally giving person so straight away I said ‘you can have my kidney.’ But then afterwards, I sat down and I said to myself ‘what have I let myself in for?’ I didn’t have a clue. I had no information on what it involved. It was only when I went on the internet and began researching information that I had the confidence I was doing the right thing.”

Sadly, after a nine month process of extensive medical tests and consultations, doctors advised her against becoming a donor because of the possible complications to her own health. Tayo is on dialysis and still waiting for a donor.

Although disappointed that she couldn’t become a donor, Idowu wrote a book about the experience, More Than A Match, to help others who were also thinking about becoming living donors as well as founding GOLD.

She concedes that it is still an uphill battle to raise awareness about organ donation in the black community. But she says this is the reason why she is optimistic about We Are Family.

“It’s an approach that starts with the question ‘would you give a kidney to a loved one?’ It appeals to people’s compassion rather than a typical NHS approach that says ‘have you signed up to the organ donor register?’ because that will just shut people off.

“Once you give people information that they can relate to and there’s somebody there who can answer their questions, things will change. It might not be a huge change at first, but things will slowly change as more people talk to their families about the issues.”