(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
A new tactic is being used in the drive to improve organ donation rates in Australia's Arab and Chinese communities.
A digital campaign tells the stories of three recipients in the hope they will inspire others.
Alyshia Gates reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Mohammad Farran is like any other 13 year old: he enjoys spending time with his family, catching up with friends,but he especially enjoys weekend football games.
What many people wouldn't guess is the Sydney teenager fought a long, hard battle to make it to the footy field.
A decade ago he was diagnosed with a rare heart disease: restrictive cardiomyopathy.
This is how Mohammad describes his condition.
"It's got something at the bottom and it grows too much eventually from the top and it doesn't work the blood flow throughout your whole body."
(reporter: "So what do you remember about being sick Mohammad?"
"When I'd go for a swim I'd have blue lips, I wasn't as active, would sit and watch my friends. Yeah it wasn't the best experience."
Mohammad's father Ahmad remembers when his son was diagnosed with the debilitating disease.
"We found out when Mohammad was three years old his lips were turning blue when he goes swimming so we took him for a check up and we found that he's got some heart problems. After the examination we found that he's got restrictive cardiomyopathy which is a heart disease in the muscles which makes the muscles very very stiff and restricted and then with the pressure on the heart, the heart gets bigger and bigger and then eventually it deteriorates."
Mohammad lost his appetite, his face and stomach became swollen and the once-energetic youngster had to sit on the sidelines to watch his mates play sport.
"They were growing much bigger and I stayed small."
Reporter: "How did you feel when you saw they could all play sport and you couldn't?"
"Disappointed. Very very disappointed."
At age nine, Mohammad's condition deteriorated.
Doctors broke the news to his family that he had only six months to live.
They said a transplant was the only thing that could save him.
He travelled to Melbourne to check his suitability for the operation and was put on a waiting list with nine other people.
He returned home to Sydney and the next day received a phone call that changed his life.
It was straight back to the Melbourne Children's Hospital for a heart transplant operation.
Mohammad's father says in many ways, it saved them all.
"Not only his life it also saved the whole family a lot of pain. When Mohammad was sick he couldn't do any sports, he couldn't walk to the shopping, he couldn't do anything. He stayed home most of the time, he couldn't participate in a lot of things, we couldn't go overseas because of him in and out of hospital all the time, medications, all that. So a lot of pain for the whole family and very very painful for the patient."
Mohammad is now helping promote a message in Australia's Arabic and Asian communities, where organ donor rates are very low.
His story is one of three being told online in Cantonese, Arabic and English through a New South Wales government campaign as part of the Diversity Project.
It's a partnership between Transplant Australia and the state's Multicultural Health Communication and Organ and Tissue Donation Services.
Multicultural Health Communication Service director Peter Todaro explains the program wants to encourage communities to start a conversation with their families about organ and tissue donation.
He says they're trying to increase registrations from culturally and linguistically diverse communities and to do that, they first had to identify why the reluctance exists in the first place.
"In order to do that we've had to take a bit of a step back and look at some of the reasons that people might not want to donate. Those reasons vary. You know people don't trust the system. There are issues in China there is an issue of organ harvesting. People carry that mythology, some of those misconceptions, with them."
The program hopes to clarify myths and misconceptions surrounding organ donation and, at the same time, highlight that organ failure happens to people of any age, ethnicity or religion.
CEO of Transplant Australia Chris Thomas says it's essential people look at the facts.
"Of Australians with an Asian background, they represent a little less than 4 per cent of donors but they represent about 16 people waiting for a kidney transplant and the reality is that your chances of receiving a transplant are indeed improved if someone from your genetic or family background is donating."
Peter Todaro also has a message for any wondering about whether their faith allows them to donate.
"If there's people around you that want to discourage you because of Islam or Buddhism or whatever, go and talk to somebody that you know: go and talk to an imam or go and talk to a priest and say look this is what I want to do. I think you'll find that you'll be encouraged to do that."
More than 1500 Australians are waiting for a life-saving transplant right now and just one organ donor can save the lives of up to seven other people.
As for Mohammad, not only was his transplant ultimately a success, the valves from his heart went on to give the gift of life to another.
Reporter: "So your valves have helped someone else too?"
"Yep and hopefully that person's, the valves that I gave them, can help someone else too."
Mohammad's father says an unknown family has given his family the most precious gift.
"The most important thing is the family who donated the organ, we'd like to thank them we don't know them but we thank them very much and it's a gift of life they gave to my son."
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