CCI offers a number of programmes designed to give sick children the respite they need from the radioactive environment in which they are forced to live. Some programmes give children a few weeks to relax and detoxify in a healthy environment, some provide medical treatment and others offer a two-week holiday at a camp specially designed for terminally ill children.
Rest and Recuperation Programme
For 20 years, volunteer host families throughout Ireland have given more than 22,000 children the opportunity to enjoy a holiday away from the debilitating environment in which they live. In the summer and during Christmas of each year, more than 1,000 children are welcomed into Irish homes and families.
The success of this, our oldest programme, is due to the commitment and goodwill of host families throughout Ireland who receive these children into warm and loving home environments.
Being able to escape a radioactive, highly toxic environment for just a few weeks extends each child’s life by an estimated two years, and reduces their contamination levels by 30 to 50 percent. Just as important, these children return to their communities with the comforting knowledge that the outside world has not forgotten about them.
As more and more volunteers have opened their arms to these children over the years, the initiative has gone from strength to strength, becoming the inspiration for similar programmes throughout the world.
Long-Term Care Programme
CCI also operates a Long-Term Care Programme to ensure that seriously ill children can come to Ireland to seek expert medical care and attention.
The programme brings hundreds of children from the most poverty-stricken areas of Belarus to Ireland, where they stay with committed host families for some respite from their contaminated environment. Each of these children needs ongoing treatment for Chernobyl-related illnesses that requires them to reside in Ireland for long periods of time or to return to Ireland regularly so that they can be monitored and treated on an ongoing basis.
As well as the loving care of host families throughout Ireland, the programme relies on the support of various hospitals and health professionals that provide potentially life-saving treatment that is unavailable to them at home in Belarus.
Barretstown Programme
Each year, the Barretstown Programme sponsors 30 terminally ill children to come to Ireland and enjoy a two-week holiday at the Barretstown Camp in Co. Kildare.
The Barretstown Camp provides specialist care for children from all over Europe with cancer or serious blood diseases.
Barretstown is a magical castle in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, where children with cancer and other serious illnesses come for treatment, adventure and fun, and to regain their confidence and self esteem. Each of the children can enjoy a holiday with excellent, unobtrusive medical supervision. Barretstown was founded by the late screen legend Paul Newman in 1994 after the success of his Hole in the Wall Camps in the USA.
CCI is delighted to be involved with the Barretstown Camp, whose work with seriously ill children is truly inspirational.
In-Country Rest and Recuperation Programme
For children who are too ill or too institutionalised to travel abroad, CCI offers several in-country rest and recuperation camps in Belarus. More than 200 seriously ill children benefit from the many therapeutic and educational activities at Chernobyl Children International camps each year. Irish and American volunteers travel to Belarus to work on these programmes and help make the experience memorable for these sick children. If you are interested in volunteering, please email us at info@chernobyl-international.com or call +353 21 4312999.
You can also make a donation to help fund some much-needed rest and recuperation for a sick child.