The Circle of Life from Disney’s The Lion King is the namesake of 18 year old Nadeen Issa’s charity organization which raises awareness about leukemia and managed to increase the number of bone marrow donors in the Middle East. The Palestinian American talked to Tempo about her vision.
TEMPO: How does an 18 year old Palestinian American who’s getting ready to go to university have time to run a philanthropic initiative?
Nadeen: Well I started this club when I was in eighth grade, so around five years ago; I’m getting ready to go to University of Chicago this fall. I set up Circle of Life as a non-profit initiative that aims to increase the number of bone marrow donors in the Middle East by raising awareness on its importance, especially for leukemia patients.
TEMPO: What made you want to do this?
Nadeen: One of my best family friends, who is like my little sister, was diagnosed with leukemia. She was diagnosed with the cancer but she couldn’t find a bone marrow match, and this made her chances of survival slim. A bone marrow transplant must have a similar sequence of DNA in order to be accepted by the patient’s body, so the donors’ ethnicities play a huge role. At that time, out of 14.9 million donors worldwide, only 45 were from the Middle East! I knew I needed to help her and other Middle Eastern children in some way, but since I was too young to donate marrow myself, I decided to start a leukemia walk to raise awareness. And Circle of Life was born.
TEMPO: And how did that go?
Nadeen: We faced a lot of challenges raising funds through our yearly leukemia awareness walk, especially trying to convince big corporations that we were legitimate. Since we were all very young, most corporations would look at us in a ‘oh-how-cute’ sort of way, but they were not really willing to give us any large donations.
TEMPO: How much did you raise?
Nadeen: We’ve been able to raise over AED 200,000 for the Leukemia Research Foundation. We were also able to increase the number of bone marrow registrants within the Middle East by more than four times over the course of the last five years. I’m very proud of our success, but we still have a lot more work to do – we are not done yet!
TEMPO: What do you still need to achieve?
Nadeen: My main goal for Circle of Life is to significantly increase the number of bone marrow donors in the Middle East, and to collaborate with a large corporation so that we can set up our own bone marrow database within Abu Dhabi.
TEMPO: So what happens at the annual Circle of Life walk?
Nadeen: At the walk, you can find face painting booths, bouncy castles, carnival games such as ring tosses, raffle tickets, yoga, zumba, and much, much more. We also sell original merchandise for Circle of Life including water bottles, t-shirts and bracelets. It’s a great event for families and friends.
TEMPO: You’ve already left the school at press time. How have you managed to continue the organization?
Nadeen: Given that I had to leave for university, we had an election process to find people already in our team that would be best equipped to run and lead this organisation. At the same time, I created a sort of cheat-sheet including all the general things they would need to do to give them a head start. Just because I left, that doesn’t mean they can’t reach me. I am always available to help them when they need me. I hope for this to become a domino effect and for more elections to come as the different classes graduate.
TEMPO: How can people support your cause, Nadeen?
Nadeen: We have a Facebook page: Circle of Life, Instagram: @circleoflifeorganization, and Twitter: @circleoflife_. Like our Facebook Page, join our walks, and please support us by either signing up for donating bone marrow or making contributions towards the LRF! Help us raise awareness on this important cause!
By Sanjana Mahajan
Photos from Hassan Al Sheikh
