R  Re: Sarah Carey ‘Chernobyl children should be offered help at home’

Dear Editor

I refer to Sarah Carey’s piece ‘Chernobyl children should be offered help at home’ in which she states several inaccuracies and untruths about the work of Chernobyl Children’s Project International (CCPI). (Sunday Times, 7^th September 2008).  

Ms Carey is unaware of the many sustainable and developmental projects that CCPI undertakes within Belarus. I am also shocked to read that Sarah’s understanding of the work of Rest & Recuperation is that it ‘is capable of harm’. As a founding programme of CCPI, Rest & Recuperation continues to benefit over 17,000 children to date who come into Ireland for recuperation, and in some cases for urgent medical attention. Many of these children still live in some of the most highly-contaminated areas in the Chernobyl regions. CCPI is also committed to In-Country Rest & Recuperation and has recuperated several hundred children in Belarus in the past three years. It may not be well-known that every year we send hundreds of children to camps that we organise inside Belarus. We make that special effort to include children who would otherwise never have the opportunity – the severely disabled and children recovering from cancer and heart surgery. 

No other transition economy or developing country has had to deal with the aftermath of nuclear contamination quite in the same way as Belarus. Comparing Belarus to any country in Africa isn’t helpful. Taking children away for even short periods from their immediate environment in the Chernobyl region gives untold health benefits back to these children, as the impact of radioactive poisoning will continue to affect future generations of children. Hand on heart, how can we say that annual visits to Ireland can ever be harmful to the very same children who we work with within Belarus, in building new Day Care Centres serving many towns and villages, purchasing new ‘Homes of Hope’, delivering aid directly to where it is needed the most and by improving living standards in institutions on the ground. 

To put our work in perspective, CCPI is one of the leading international charities at the forefront of development work within Belarus and holds UN NGO status. Over the past 17 years the Rest & Recuperation Programme now accounts for less than 10% of the programme work of the charity. Over 90% of our work is undertaken within Belarus – working in partnership with local communities, building up local capacity and directly benefiting local communities including children and adults. CCPI has invested over €75 million euro as part of our commitment to developing programmes that assist local communities. We are also committed to creating local employment and currently employ over 40 staff including administrative, medical, nursing, therapeutic and building and construction. 

Through the many sustainable projects that CCPI undertakes, we are leading the way in de-institutionalising children in Belarus through our ‘Home of Hope’ and Day Care Centre Programmes. The ‘Home of Hope’ Programme moves children out of orphanages and institutions into homes of their own, cared for in groups of up to 10 children by highly-vetted foster parents. CCPI has developed ground-breaking partnerships with local authorities, Ministries and partners and agencies in Belarus to further develop our Day Care Centre Programme. We continue to foster a culture of self-help and give people a say in how they want their communities to come to life again. Each Day Care Centre provides a range of social, community, medical and educational services to hinterland populations of up to 17,000 people. In practice, we have placed a huge emphasis on improving household incomes, built and strengthened primary health care and helped in the processes of rebuilding the structures of society at a local community level. 

Earlier this year, The Dept of Foreign Affairs gave huge financial support to CCPI to build two new Day Care Centres in partnership with local communities. CCPI is the only international NGO working at a micro-level with communities and for communities in Belarus. Aid Direct is another programme of activity that Sarah Carey may be unaware of. This humanitarian programme replaced aid delivery by convoy, which was deemed by many other international agencies to be unsustainable. Over €500,000 is invested annually in this programme where all food, basic items and medication are bought locally therefore uplifting the local economy. Our successful children’s Cardiac Surgery Programme in Minsk, Belarus mobilises volunteer surgical teams from all over the world, saving hundreds of young lives and through training and equipment investment has reduced down the waiting list for life-saving surgeries from 7,000 to 2,400. This year, we extended this successful programme into Ukraine with volunteer teams travelling to Kharkiv and Odessa and will operate and train in Donetsk and Kyiv by year end, investing over $300,000 in 2008 alone.  

I would also like to point out that Ms Carey makes several omissions in her facts and figures on the affects of the Chernobyl disaster. She singularly quotes from the Chernobyl Forum Report and has neglected to research any other primary or secondary sources of scientific information. There are other significant reports on Chernobyl by as many eminent scientists as the Forum Report and they blatantly contradict it. The nuclear scientists and physicists and the many authors of one of the most accessible reports on the affects of the Chernobyl disaster ie ‘The Other Report on Chernobyl (TORCH)’ reveal the findings of 1,000 previously ignored documents, revealing sobering statistics – 200% increase in birth defects since 1986; 30,000-60,000 excess cancer deaths predicated worldwide and predicted excess cases of thyroid cancer between 18,000 and 66,000. The normal rate of thyroid cancer is only one in a million. 

One million children are condemned to live in environments contaminated by radionuclides from Chernboyl. Up to 90% of the contamination is internal and the rest external. Some internal organs accumulate huge concentrations of radionuclides. The resulting chronic contamination has very serious effects on health. In Belarus today, 85% of the children in contaminated areas are ill; before the explosion this figure was 15%. Hundreds of epidemiological studies in Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation have established that there has been a significant rise in all types of cancer causing thousands of deaths, an increase in infant and perinatal mortality, a large number of spontaneous abortions, a growing number of deformities and genetic anomalies, disturbance and retardation of mental development, neuropsychological illness, blindness and diseases of the respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, urogenital and endocrine systems. The overall health consequences for Chernobyl are huge, in particular the health effects of chronic, low dose radiation from prolonged ingestion of artificial radionuclides. 

What we do know is that the full effects of the Chernobyl accident may never be known. Of the 800,000 young men conscripted into the Chernobyl area in the aftermath of the disaster, The Chief Medical Officer of the Russian Federation noted in 2001 that 10% of 184,000 liquidators had died and one third was invalid. The Ukraine provided 260,000 liquidators. According to a press release from the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris, dated 25 April 2005, 94.2% of them were ill in 2004. 

We are now seeing genetic change, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened. There has been a 200% increase in birth defects since 1986 (University of Hiroshima). The US National Academy of Sciences has stated that most cancers from radiation exposure do not develop for several decades after exposure. The highest incidence of cancer is expected to occur over the next decade, therefore no accurate assessment of the overall impact can be made until this period has expired.

The mission of CCPI is to develop and facilitate long-term sustainable community-based solutions and provide effective medical and humanitarian assistance to the victims and survivors of the Chernobyl disaster. The recent documentary broadcast on RTE shows our mission in action and highlights the superb work of Irish volunteers in Belarus. We will continue to improve the lives of children in the Chernobyl regions and shout their cause from the rooftops.

Adi Roche

CEO, Chernobyl Children’s Project International