BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28 December 2005

Healthy Gift For Chernobyl Children

By Suzanne Pert

A CHRISTMAS holiday on the Island is literally offering a lifeline to 12 children who live in the area ravaged by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion almost 20 years ago.

Although the years have passed, the effects of the radiation, equal to 300 Hiroshima bombs, are still affecting the health of those who live there, particularly children.

For many years, groups have been visiting the IW for a month twice a year, thanks to Chernobyl Children Life Line, a national charity with a link on the Island.

The trips are not just a diversion from their everyday lives in one of the poorest areas of the former USSR, Belarus, but the four weeks here allow their immune systems to make a recovery.

Julia Lock, of the Island branch of the charity, who has six of the children staying at her home in Millfield Road, Carisbrooke, said: "Their teeth and bones are affected, as are their internal organs. Most have problems with thyroid glands and are very prone to coughs and colds.

"Everything there was affected, even the soil and the produce they grow in their gardens. They have no choice but to eat it," said Mrs Lock, who said some of the children were staying at homes in East Cowes, Rookley and Newport. They were accompanied by a teacher, Dmitry Pashchenko.

Fares for each child cost ?282 and events are laid on by Island companies, including a visit to IW Pearl on the Military Road for a party.

The children arrived on December 14 and will return to Belarus on January 11.

Julia said some of the children, whose ages ranged from seven to 14, had parents who were alcoholics and some only had one parent.

"Alcoholism is rife out there. The children are chosen by the education department to come, or in some cases a family here who may have hosted a child will pay for him or her to return and stay with them again," said Julia.

Mr Pashchenko, who has been coming over for eight years, said the visits were very important.

"It gives the children a different life experience and shows them another standard of living," he said. "The economic situation out there is very difficult. Parents cannot afford to give them proper food.

"They have very low immune systems and often get infections. There is also a high incidence of child cancers," said Mr Pashchenko.

Source:

http://www.iwcp.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1252&ArticleID=1296645

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