For a 13-year-old girl facing a relapse of leukaemia, survival now depends on finding a stranger whose tissue type is a near-perfect match for her own. That person may live in Mossel Bay without any idea they are needed. On Saturday, 1 August 2026, the community has a chance to change that.
From 09:00 to 15:00 at Garden Walk Mall, residents are invited to a stem cell donor registration drive. Signing up takes only a few minutes and involves a short form and a few cheek swabs. Each sample is added to a global registry, giving patients with blood cancers and blood disorders around the world a better chance of finding a matching stem cell donor.
The girl at the heart of the drive is Alba, and her fight began long before this year. At just four years old, shortly after Christmas in 2017, her mother, Esther, noticed she was bruising easily and had developed an unusual rash. When tiny red blood spots appeared on her skin, Esther rushed her to a paediatrician. “I remember the doctor suddenly becoming very quiet,” she recalls. “He’s not the silent type. The moment he stopped talking, I knew something was wrong.” Tests confirmed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. “It felt like all the hope disappeared in that moment.”
After two and a half years of chemotherapy, Alba recovered, returned to school, and went back to dreaming of becoming a chef or an anime voice actor. Then, knee pain following a fall prompted further tests, which revealed the cancer had returned. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed it.
Today, Alba is once again seriously ill. After an infection left her in a critical condition, she was admitted to the haematology ward, where she remains in protective isolation. Her treatment has once again put much of her childhood on hold. She has missed months of school, including her Grade 7 exams, and will now have to repeat the year.
To survive, Alba needs a stem cell transplant, and that depends on finding an unrelated donor whose tissue characteristics closely match her own.
The community initiative is being coordinated by Grindstone, a Mossel Bay-based creative and digital agency, and Unfound Garden Route, the region’s destination management organisation, in partnership with DKMS Africa. The link is deeply personal: Esther is part of the Grindstone team, and her colleagues have rallied around the family throughout Alba’s treatment.
“The hope I have to keep holding onto is that somewhere in the world, there may already be someone who could save my daughter’s life. They just don’t know they’re needed yet,” says Esther. “We’re now completely reliant on finding a donor.”
The family is clear that the event is about far more than one child. Every person who signs up could one day become the match for someone’s child, parent, sibling or friend. Alba feels the same. “If sharing my story encourages more people to join the registry, I know it could also help countless other families,” she says.
For Grindstone Managing Director Lynette, the cause is close to home. “As a mother, I simply can’t imagine what Esther and her family have been navigating over the past couple of months. My youngest child goes to school with Alba, so this story has touched our family in a very real way. If we can use our networks and our community to encourage more people to register as stem cell donors, then we have an opportunity to help far more families than just one.”
One of the biggest misconceptions is that donating means major surgery. In reality, 100% of stem cell donations are collected from the bloodstream, in a process similar to donating blood or plasma. Registration is quick, painless and free.
“Every hour, someone in South Africa is diagnosed with blood cancer, and for many of these patients a transplant from a matching donor is their only chance of survival,” explains Palesa Mokomele, Head of Community Engagement and Communications at DKMS Africa. “Patients are most likely to find that match among donors who share their heritage, which is why every registration in a community like Mossel Bay counts. When residents step forward, they improve the odds not only for Alba, but for patients across the country and around the world.”
Anyone aged 17 to 55 and in general good health can register as a potential donor. DKMS Africa representatives will be on site throughout the day to check eligibility, answer questions, and guide participants through the process. Community members are encouraged to bring friends, family and colleagues, and to help spread the word.
Those unable to attend on the day can still register by requesting a free home swab kit at www.dkms-africa.org.
About DKMS
DKMS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the fight against blood cancer. It was founded in Germany in 1991 by Dr. Peter Harf and DKMS together with the organization’s over 1,200 employees and has since relentlessly pursued the aim of giving as many patients as possible a second chance at life. With over 13 million registered donors, DKMS has succeeded in doing this more than 115,000 times to date by providing blood stem cell donations to those in need. This accomplishment has led to DKMS becoming the global leader in the facilitation of unrelated blood stem cell transplants. The organization has offices in Germany, the US, Poland, the UK, Chile, India and South Africa.
DKMS is also heavily involved in the fields of medicine and science, with its own research unit focused on continually improving the survival and recovery rate of patients. In its high-performance laboratory, the DKMS Life Science Lab, the organization sets worldwide standards in the typing of potential blood stem cell donors.
DKMS Africa received its WMDA certification in 2025, cementing its position as South Africa’s biggest and most diverse stem cell donor registry.
For more information, go to https://www.dkms-africa.org
