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On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now independent Ukraine) caused the worst peacetime nuclear disaster due to a terrible reactor meltdown. Fifteen years have gone by and the whole surrounding region for a 20-mile radius is highly radioactive and uninhabitable for human beings and animals. Severe cases of cancer, birth defects, skin disease and myeloid leukemia have been reported over the years while the people of this ‘cursed’ city will have to live on carrying inside of them images of a holocaust.
Fortunately, the world has not been unmoved. There have been several humanitarian projects aimed at treating people affected by radioactivity. One of these is Chernobyl Children’s Project, an Irish registered charity established to help child victims affected by the world’s worst nuclear disaster. It is run by a decisive woman named Adi Roche.
The Chernobyl Children’s Project was initiated in response to a desperate appeal, which was faxed to the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (C.N.D.) office in Cork, Ireland, by doctors who were nursing children suffering from radioactivity, in the Chernobyl-affected country of Belarus. The message read: “S.O.S. Appeal. For God’s sake, help us to get the children out.”
Since the first day of its foundation, the Chernobyl Children’s Project has brought 6,000 children to Ireland for summer periods of rest & recuperation. It has sent more than IR £12m worth of humanitarian aid to Belarus, Western Russia & The Ukraine. It has organised life saving operations for dozens of children under it's Long Term Care Programme. It has provided and continues to sponsor a 100-strong ambulance fleet in Belarus. It has undertaken a number of building and renovation projects in orphanages and childcare institutions in Belarus.
Adi Roche, the woman behind the project, was born in 1955 in Tipperary, Ireland. She first took voluntary redundancy from her job in the Irish Airlines to work full-time as a volunteer for the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (ICND) at the age of 27.
In 1990 she initiated the Chernobyl Children’s Project and she is its executive director. She has worked on various educational and humanitarian projects as well as given lectures around Europe. She became the first Irish woman to be elected to the Board of Directors of the 'International Peace Bureau' (IPB) which is a non-governmental organisation based in Geneva. She was rightfully bestowed the ‘European Woman Laureate’ and ‘Irish Person of the Year’ awards.
In 1993 Adi Roche and Alison Hewson set off on a mission to record the first documentary in English “Black Wind, White Land – Living with Chernobyl” on the fatal explosion of Chernobyl. The video was broadcast on national television in countries including Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, the Netherlands, South Africa and Malaysia in the hope of increasing people’s awareness of the subject.
Alison Hewson is perhaps better known as the wife of Irish rock band U2’s Bono. Yet, her concern for the world we live in takes her on missions across Europe and engages her in some very unusual cases. She started by doing some campaigning work for Greenpeace protesting against a nuclear reprocessing plant in Sellafield, on the northwest coast of Britain.
Today, at the age of 41, this warm-hearted brunette is the godmother of Anna, a child from Belarussia, who suffers from a rare disease. Her husband, Bono has been more than supportive. The couple had been seriously thinking of adopting a child. Bono’s international fame, however, would bring the child to the center of attention, so they decided not to proceed.
Alison is a woman who has worked hard to prove that life is giving and helping those in need. Everyone who has met her praises her for her courage, her strong sentiments of altruism and the low profile she keeps, despite being the wife of million-dollar star Bono.
For more info on the Chernobyl Children’s project as well as for your support contact: Chernobyl Children's Project P.O. Box 211, Cork, Ireland
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