I am extremely proud to announce that my brother, Margot’s father, Yaser has been awarded a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2022 for services to Stem Cell Donation.

Family & friends came together as ‘Team Margot’ in late 2013 when Yaser and Vicki’s daughter, Margot, was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukaemia. Margot’s best chance of survival was to find a matching stem cell donor and Team Margot ran an appeal to find Margot and other patients like her a ‘perfect’ donor match.

Yaser & Vicki led the charge working closely with me and Margot’s auntie Charlotte. Eventually, a ‘suitable’ match was found and bone marrow was donated by a 21 year old man in Germany, so enabling Margot to have her bone marrow transplant in February 2014. Unfortunately, Margot’s blood cancer was extremely aggressive and she relapsed and died aged 2 years 2 months old on the 27 October 2014.

Yaser co-founded the charity, Team Margot Foundation in January 2015 and has campaigned relentlessly over the years to educate, inspire and motivate people, especially those of mixed heritage, how they can literally help save the lives of others by registering as a stem cell or bone marrow donor. Yaser is a regular speaker at the NHS Blood and Transplant donor recognition ceremonies and is an active workshop contributor to the World Marrow Donor Association. All our family and friends feel hugely proud of Yaser and believe that this award is greatly deserved and I suspect that everyone at Team Margot will feel the same way too.

Whilst such an award is an honour, it reminds us of Margot’s absence. Margot’s inspiration and strength, love of life and her legacy is recognised with both the work of Team Margot and now with this British Empire Medal.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support Team Margot and to all those people who have registered as a donor.

Team Margot
Together, saving lives

Nadia Martini