CCPI History

“SOS appeal. For god’s sake, help us to get the children out.”

This desperate appeal made by Belarusian and Ukrainian doctors was sent in a fax and received by Cork Nuclear Disarmament volunteer Adi Roche in January 1991. The fax was simple and to the point, it simply begged for the children to be taken away from their radioactive environment so that their bodies had some chance of recovery.

Little did Adi Roche imagine how her life would change after she received this fax, how immersed and intertwined she would become with the Chernobyl story. Her response was immediate and that following summer she coordinated and organised the first group of Chernobyl children to arrive in Ireland for recuperative holidays and CCPI was founded in an effort to help alleviate the suffering and to offer hope to those most affected by the Chernobyl explosion, namely the children of Belarus, Western Russia and the Ukraine.

What had started out as purely a response to children in crisis went on to be a tour de force, developing comprehensive aid programmes right across the spectrum. What began in the back bedroom of Adi Roche’s house in Cork, Ireland has now grown and become a strong force for real and sustainable change.

Since its establishment in 1991 CCPI has gone from strength to strength and has given over 14,000 children recuperative holidays here in Ireland. Research has shown that each child taken from their radioactive environment to Ireland is ‘returned’ two years of life. Through its efforts the quality of life of thousands of young girls and boys from the heart of the ‘Chernobyl zone’ has been improved immeasurably. To date, the project has sent more than €65 million worth of direct and indirect humanitarian and medical aid to the Chernobyl region.

CCPI is recognised internationally as the largest global contributor to Belarus and is deeply respected at all levels in the country. The charity was awarded official NGO status by the UN in 2004 and it is the only charity working in the Chernobyl area that has been granted this status. The charity is registered in Ireland, the UK, Belarus and the USA. There is a fulltime resource of six personnel in Ireland, four administrative personnel and thirteen professional medical staff in Belarus, supported by an international volunteer force of over 8,000. The ability to effect change at so many levels in the political arena in Belarus is testament to the efficiency of its organisational and administrative capability.

The first 14 years of the Project’s work concentrated immediate assistance in the form of emergency relief. In keeping with ‘international best practice’ the Chernobyl Children’s Project International develops homecare and community based programmes and day care facilities to assist individuals and communities to take their future in their own hands. The Project has formed many alliances and associations throughout the world in Canada, Italy, the US, France and England to name but a few and works in partnership with agencies and communities at local level to encourage and foster reintegration.

For the first 15 years of our work, we concentrated our efforts and resources on projects designed to give immediate assistance in the form of emergency relief. Our efforts focused on ameliorating the condition of those most affected by the disaster by the direct provision of medical and humanitarian assistance. This involved the development and implementation of a wide range of programmes, including biannual convoys, long-term care to terminally ill children and orphanage refurbishment projects which have dramatically improved the living conditions of children in state-run institutions.  

In addition, CCPI operate an annual emergency airlift of children from the heart of the radiation zones to Ireland for rest and recuperation. We have an ambulance programme which has delivered and maintains a fleet of over 160 ambulances for hospitals, institutions and orphanages throughout the region, and we run long-term community development projects. Along with direct humanitarian intervention programmes, we also work closely with the scientific community in Belarus on radio-ecological education and implementation. We fund the work of Professor Vasily Nesterenko of the Belarusian Institute of Radiation Safety through the purchase of Mobile Radiation Monitoring units which carry teams of scientists and their equipment throughout the contaminated zones checking the levels of radiation in both children and foodstuffs.

We did a lot of soul-searching in 2001 about our work, looking in particular at the area where we prop up state asylums and orphanages. We started to question the whole culture of the abandonment of children, and in our search for answers we looked at international best practice. Half a century of research has shown that no matter how much you improve the institutions, they are still detrimental to the mental, emotional and physical well-being of children. In other words children thrive best in a loving home environment placed in a wider community.

Out of this CCPI has chosen a whole new approach by moving away from the old-style donor versus recipient model to one of partnership, to give people a say in how they want their dying communities to come to life again. They now have partnerships with several fledgling indigenous organisations that work in and among local communities throughout Belarus. This work has convinced the charity that effort and resources are best channelled into areas that promote and foster a culture of self-help among the people.

We now identify the needs of children and families in the affected areas and attempt to deliver aid programmes of direct relevance to the people and work alongside these organisations to enable them to deliver a range of services to ordinary individuals, families and local communities. In practice, this means that a strong emphasis must be put on efforts to improve household incomes, to build and strengthen primary health care and help in the process of rebuilding the structures of society at the local community level.