Cathedral catwalk to celebrate organ donation

After a failed kidney transplant and a decade on dialysis, Shaista Dagia is one of a dozen people taking to the catwalk in Coventry this weekend.

It's now seven years since her second, and this time successful, transplant and the 31-year-old will be taking part in the fashion show to highlight the need for organ donors in South Asian communities.

Threads That Heal is being held at Coventry Cathedral on 11 July with the world famous Baptistery Window as the backdrop.

Dagia said there needed to be more conversations about organ donations in the South Asian community. "There's a lot of myths that need to be busted in terms of religious factors and cultural factors. But the way organ donation transforms lives is amazing."

Since her transplant, Dagia's gone from her life revolving around dialysis, to travelling the world.

"I've walked the Great Wall of China, I've done so many amazing things since. [At 18] everything that I was doing revolved around having treatment.

"Now, I take part in the British Transplant Games every year and I've been lucky enough to represent Great Britain in the World Winter Games."

Everyone taking to the catwalk at the Thread That Heal event has experienced organ donation and will tell their story as part of the show.

Some have received organs, others have donated them. One man chose to donate his wife's organs and now campaigns for others to do the same.

For 66-year-old Prafula Shah, it'll be her first ever time on a catwalk.

She's chosen to take part after donating a kidney to a stranger, and, in return, a stranger donated a kidney to her niece.

It was complicated chain of donations organised by the UK Kidney Sharing Scheme.

"The whole process is anonymous and all the surgeries happened on the same day in March 2018 and there were six people in our chain,", she said.

Since that day, Shah has dedicated her life to raising awareness of organ, blood and stem cell donation.

"It's very important that we raise awareness in the South Asian community because that is where we still have the greatest number of people waiting. They wait a lot longer than white people in the UK."

And how is Shah's niece since the transplant? Well, she too has travelled the world and is currently in South Korea. She's also due to get married in September.

"It's an incredible journey in terms of what has happened and what this transplant has allowed her to do.

"Just by doing one act of kindness, I'm able to see her grow and become this amazing human being", she said.

Harvinder Poonian is from the South Asian Heritage Trust, who have organised the event.

She says she wanted to find a fun way to tell these stories, and to get people talking.

"It's such a heavy topic and we were just exploring ideas of what we could do and the idea of a fashion show just popped in.

"I just thought what a beautiful way to share stories."

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