Over one million children still live in Chernobyl ‘hot zones’

By Mary Dennehy

THREE decades after the Chernobyl disaster, more than one million children continue to live in contaminated zones – including 11-year-old Yana who has travelled nearly 3,000km to stay with a Rathfarnham family for a respite, summer holiday.

Non-verbal, blind and diagnosed with a form of cerebral palsy and scoliosis, Yana Bardouskaya, like thousands of children and young adults from Chernobyl and its neighbouring country of Belarus, is exposed daily to contaminated air, water and food, while being left alone, with little stimulation, in a state orphanage.

However, there is hope for children like Yana, who last week was among 150 kids and young adults who arrived in Ireland from Belarus for a summer holiday of fun, love and recuperation.

Organised by Adi Roche’s Chernobyl Children International (CCI), the summer Rest and Recuperation Programme gives children and young adults a health-boosting reprieve from the toxic environment they live in and the high levels of radiation to which they are exposed.

According to the charity, just a few weeks in Ireland away from this highly toxic environment extends each child’s life by an estimated two years.

Mark Hogan from Rathfarnham is a volunteer with the charity and met Yana on one of his visits to the Vesnova orphanage in Belarus.

Mark told The Echo: “Over the past 15 years, the charity has put €3 million into the orphanage, which was once in a horrendous condition but has now significantly improved thanks to donations from Ireland and all the volunteers who have gone over on building and refurbishment projects.

“I met Yana during some of the volunteering visits, which also sees volunteers sit with children and hold their hands so that know they haven’t been forgotten about.

“Last Christmas, Yana came to stay for a two-week holiday and during this time my parents fell in love with her and she’s come back to stay with them in their Rathfarnham home for a month this summer.”

He added: “Despite having various mental and physical challenges, Yana is amazingly independent and has a real appetite to explore and learn – she’s always up to some mischief.

“This holiday is so important for the children in terms of their health, but also so they know that the outside world has not forgotten about them.

“The majority of these children have been in orphanages their whole life and this holiday gives them a sense of belonging, makes them feel at home.”

Since 1991, 25,000 children from Belarus and Western Russia have come to Ireland with CCI on its Rest and Recuperation programme.

Adi Roche, Voluntary CEO of CCI, said: “In this the 30th anniversary year of the worst nuclear disaster in history, we must recommit, rededicate and redouble our efforts to help alleviate these children’s suffering.

“Radioactive contamination is still having an adverse effect on the lives and health of the children of the Chernobyl regions.”

For further information or to make a donation to help bring more children to Ireland visit www.chernobyl-international.com or call
021 455877.