Adi Roche and Ali Hewson, CCPI offered a cead mile failte to very special children at the Garda Headquarters in Dublin this week. Best friends Kristina Nikitsionak and Olga Nikittka, in Ireland to receive specialist orthopaedic medical care in Cappagh Hospital have long dreamt of being a policewoman and a ballerina. A full ceremony, including stately horses, garda band and Garda motor squad was arranged at Garda Headquarters where the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner Louis Harkin presented the girls with garda hats, badges and a tutu. Olga and Kristina were joined by Sasha Leukin and Sasha Haldayeu, known as the the 'Two Sashas' who also come from the same orphanage in Belarus as the two girls.

The Sashas appeared in the Oscar-winning documentary 'Chernobyl Heart' and year after year stay with their host family in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Olya and Kristina are part of Chernobyl Children's Project International Long-term Care Programme, where children and teenagers requiring medical assessment and intervention come into Ireland at least once a year to stay with host families. Many of the children making Christmas visits to Ireland come from very impoverished backgrounds in Belarus and suffer a variety of Chernobyl-related illnesses. Some of these children come from orphanages and institutions where even basic sanitation and facilities are lacking.

Adi Roche said that 'Olga and Kristina and the Two Sashas are very special children who continue to give a lot of joy to their families in Ireland. The candles burning in the windows up and down the country celebrate the joy and happiness of host families at the lifting of the ban and bear testimony to the courage and bravery of Irish people who have fought for children to be given back the right to travel for medical attention. A huge thank you to our host families for their unstinting generosity and for embracing the children into their hearts and homes this Christmas.'