Even now, 25 years since the accident, the effects of radiation are still being felt in Belarus with increased numbers of illnesses such as thyroid cancer and leukaemia, as well as miscarriages and birth defects. One sixth of Belarusian farmland remains contaminated.
Chernobyl Children Rye (CCR) was started in 1995 to help children from Belarus take a month’s holiday with families in the Rye area away from the contamination. Recently CCR hosted teenagers who were in remission from cancer and who, because of their illness, would not have been able to have a respite holiday as a child.
CCR now support a children’s home hospice team in Pinsk, near the Belarus-Ukraine-Polish border. This is run by an administrator and her husband, and two part time nurses, all paid for by CCR. They care for children with terminal and life-limiting diseases, giving the whole family much needed psychological and emotional support.
The hospice has no day centre and cannot even afford an office, and urgently needs to be able to pay for a doctor. It receives no state funding, and apart from a few individual Belarusians, it has to rely entirely on foreign aid, most of it coming from the UK and an Italian charity. It does have a summer house (or dacha) about 20km from Pinsk, where families can stay or spend the day. They would desperately like to build a permanent hospice for the children. With help from Caring and Sharing, this may be possible.