For the second time this year, pop star Rihanna is using her fame for a worthy cause. She is once again helping in the search to find a match for a person in need of a bone marrow transplant. The Grammy winner is stepping forward to help a 5-year-old New York City girl find a bone marrow donor.
“When I saw the video of Jasmina it broke my heart. It is so unfair that for a black patient it’s so much harder to find a bone marrow match,” Rihanna told PEOPLE.com. “Jasmina has acute leukemia and she needs a bone marrow transplant to live.”
Last February, Rihanna helped New Yorker Lisa Flynn find a match by putting out a call for donors on PEOPLE.com. “More than 5,000 donors came forward,” says Katharina Harf of DKMS, the world’s largest nonprofit marrow donor center, which is helping to find a match for Jasmina. “Rihanna has already helped DKMS save many lives,” says Harf. “Now we can count on her again.”
“When Rihanna found out about Jasmina, she said, ‘I absolutely have to help her.’ She wanted to do whatever she could for this little girl. Rihanna loves children and no matter how busy she is, she takes time out of her schedule to help them.”
Information from People.com contributed to this report.
