Darcey, who has Jamaican heritage through her father, is a black rights activist and is championing diversity here in Wales alongside her pageant work. With Christmas celebrations fast approaching, Miss Wales is supporting the Welsh Blood Service’s campaign, #thebestgift. The campaign encourages communities across Wales to support blood stocks over the Winter period by raising awareness of the importance of a blood, platelet or bone marrow donation and the difference those precious gifts make to patients in need like Darcey.
The Service provides lifesaving blood and blood products to 19 hospitals across Wales and four Wales Air Ambulance aircraft for use in emergencies. It also manages the Welsh Bone Marrow Donor Registry which recruits and supports bone marrow volunteers matched with cancer patients across the globe to make a potentially lifesaving bone marrow donation.
Currently, three in every ten patients requiring a bone marrow transplant do not find the match they need, and the risk of not finding a donor increases to seven in ten for patients of minority ethnic heritage due to the lack of representation on global donor registers.
