Chiswick Performer Gives Back After Life-saving Treatment
Sacha Gomez organising concert to encourage stem-cell donation
Left: Sacha celebrates her recovery. Right: Sacha during her treatment
September 22, 2025
A Chiswick-based musical theatre performer is staging a charity concert to raise awareness of the urgent need for more Afro-Caribbean stem cell and organ donors, following her own recovery from acute myeloid leukaemia.
Sacha Gomez, 24, was living in her flat in Chiswick and preparing to audition for a West End production in early 2024 when she began experiencing fatigue and flu-like symptoms. Within days, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer and transferred to University College London Hospitals for specialist treatment.
Her recovery involved chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a stem cell transplant—but only after a suitable donor was located in Germany, due to the lack of matches available in the UK donor registry. Sacha, whose heritage includes Jamaican, English, and Spanish ancestry, was declared cancer-free in January 2025 and has since returned to Chiswick to rebuild her life and career.
To mark her recovery and highlight the donor shortage affecting patients of black and mixed heritage, she has organised a fundraising concert titled A Night for ACLT, in support of the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust. The event will take place at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre on Sunday 2 November, featuring performances from West End artists including Billy Nevers (Hamilton), Claudia Kariuki (Six), and Olivia Lallo (Mamma Mia!).
Sacha said, “One of my first thoughts when told I needed a transplant was, ‘Will I even find a donor?’ That uncertainty shouldn’t exist. I want to help change that.”
The concert follows a year of intensive treatment and recovery, during which Sacha relied on a feeding tube, immunosuppressants, and over 40 daily medications. Her transplant was delayed twice due to infection and donor availability, eventually taking place in October 2024—216 days after her diagnosis.
According to ACLT, patients from black and mixed-race backgrounds face significantly lower chances of finding stem cell matches compared to white northern European patients. Only 1% of UK blood donors are black, despite conditions like sickle cell disorder disproportionately affecting Afro-Caribbean communities.
ACLT co-founder Beverley De Gale OBE said, “Sacha’s story shines a powerful light on a devastating reality. This shortfall costs lives every single year.”
Tickets for A Night for ACLT are priced at £35 (plus booking fees) and available via TicketTailor. The event will also feature performers including Allie Daniel, Leesa Tulley, Kamilla Fernandes, and Malinda Parris.
Sacha, who is originally from Kings Langley, trained as a singer and actor and appears in a national television advert, hopes the concert will encourage more people of colour to register as donors and help close the gap in donor availability.
Tickets are £35 (plus booking fees) available from tickettailor.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |