Our First Ten Years • Recuperative Holidays • Neman Holiday Camp • Zhuravichi Boarding Home
Family Home 2000 • Rodni Kut • Mayflower Centre • Foster Care Training Programme
Children’s Hospice Care • Humanitarian Aid Deliveries • Special Class at School No 5
Vikov Home for Disabled Adults • Thanks to All Our Supporters

ON JANUARY 20th 1995 Chernobyl Children’s Project was launched in the UK by the Lord Mayor of Manchester.
Adi Roche, Director of CCP in Ireland, gave a moving speech about the plight of the children of Belarus, and the City Council promised its support.
Within days two groups were launched - in Glossopdale, Derbyshire and Littleborough in Lancashire and planning began in earnest for our first groups of children to arrive from Belarus.
We took our first reconditioned ambulance to Belarus in the Spring of 1995; brought our first group of children for a holiday that Summer; and by the Autumn we were able to fill a 40ft trailer with aid and deliver this to Belarus. Our aid programme has grown dramatically over the years, and we have about 30 groups who between them invite around four hundred children each Summer for recuperative holidays.
In April 1996 we joined forces with Manchester City Council to organise a commemorative event on the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, beginning with a service in the Cathedral. On the 12th anniversary we brought the theatre group Peace Child from Brest to perform a deeply moving play in Westminster Central Hall, and then to perform for some of our groups.
In 1996 we were registered as an independent charity, and in the Spring of 1997 our work in Belarus was recognised when Linda Walker was one of the first foreigners to be made a member of the Order of Franciska Skarina, one of the country’s highest awards.  She was presented with the medal by the Belarussian Ambassador, and accepted it on behalf of everyone involved with the work of Chernobyl Children’s Project(UK).

Projects in Belarus

In recent years much of our work has taken place within Belarus: supporting Children’s Hospices; running a foster care training programme which has helped to get children out of the orphanages and into local families; and organising many educational visits to the UK, supported by the Department for International Development and UNICEF. We have worked closely with Zhuravichi Boarding Home for children with disabilities, delivering aid, providing training for staff and holidays for the children.
In 2000 we set up a home for four young adults with physical disabilities who had grown up at Zhuravichi; two years later we established a foster family home in Rogachev for five young children we had taken from Zhuravichi; and in 2004 opened the Mayflower Centre in Gomel. This is the first 24-hour respite care centre in Belarus and supports many families with severely disabled children, so they can continue to care for them at home. We have worked for many years with an association of such families in Rogachev and helped them, with support from the British Embassy in Minsk, to set up a Centre for their children.

Every year since 1997 we have held a National Conference, inviting the Belarussian Ambassador and other Chernobyl charities as well as all our groups. We have always been keen to share ideas and experiences and to co-operate with other charities whenever appropriate. Most of our conferences havebeen held in Leeds and we are very grateful to Leeds City Council for the free use of their wonderful Civic Hall and for all the support provided throughout the year by their staff.