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

OUR first group of 38 children arrived at Gatwick Airport in July 1995 and came to spend a four week holiday in Glossopdale and Littleborough.
Fantastic help and support was given by the local communities, and both the children and the host families had a wonderful time. The quotes opposite from two of the girls show just how much the holiday meant to them.
By the Spring of 1996 we had set up new groups in Lancaster, Merseyside, Cardiff, South Lakes, Crewe and Evesham. We were able to invite 150 children for the summer visit, so we chartered our first plane into Manchester Airport. Most of the children were once again from village schools but we included two teenagers who were in remission from cancer. We had been nervous about taking children who had been seriously ill but everything went fine with Natasha and Anton’s visit, so in subsequent years we have always included about a hundred children from Children in Trouble, the Minsk-based charity which supports the families of children with cancer.
We brought groups of children at Christmas in 1996 and 1997, some of them from Garadyets Special School. They stayed with groups in Derbyshire, Wales and Yorkshire and all had a wonderful time, but we were concerned about the tendency of families to go overboard on presents for the children. We have always stressed to our host families that the holiday is primarily designed to boost the health of the children, not to shower them with western goods.
In May 1997 we brought our first group of young children in remission from cancer with their mothers. Children in Trouble had told us that there were many very young children becoming ill and once they were well enough to travel they were still too young to go abroad alone. Also their mums had been through such a stressful time they were almost as much in need of a holiday as the children. All involved found it a wonderful experience and the mothers pronounced the holiday ‘A Dream Come True’.
The following May we hosted several more groups of young children with their mothers – some in remission from cancer and others with disabilities. Amongst these children was Alina, see here at age four having treatment for leukaemia, and two years later enjoying her holiday in the High Peak. Sadly Alina had a relapse and died a few years later.
By 1998 we had 30 groups around the country, nearly all of them hosting children in the summer.
Children from Uvaravichi School stayed in Lancaster and Monk Fryston; Komarin School, less than 20 miles from Chernobyl, provided children for Teifi Valley; Gloucester took children from the village school in Yurovichi;and Hoiniki School No 2 sent children to Tavistock and Totnes. Children from Mogilev travelled to Cardiff; from Gomel Regional Hospital to Glossop; and children in remission from cancer came to Aberystwyth, Llandinam, Dolgellau, Leeds, Craven and Littleborough (now West Pennine).
The Endon and Stoke group decided not only to bring a group of young children from Veletin School but to invite a group of 18 teenagers in remission from cancer. These young people all stayed together at Cicely Haughton School in the Staffordshire Moorlands and the group organised a  varied and exciting programme of events for them. In recent years these 16 to 18 year olds have stayed with families for part of the visit and enjoyed the whole experience even more.
The Aberystwyth group also host teenagers and Carmarthen, a group based at Queen Elizabeth Cambria School, invite young people up to twenty years old, most of whom have never had the chance of a holiday abroad before. When children fall ill in their early teens, by the time they are well enough to travel, there are few charities willing to invite them. And for these young people the holidays provide a great psychological boost which is almost as important for their future well being as the physical improvement to their health of the fresh air and clean food.
Blantyre have hosted children who have had bone marrow transplants or have Aplastic Aneamia, who have to have a quieter holiday, and be accompanied by a specialist doctor. Totnes and Teifi Valley have found families who can take children with quite profound special needs. Buxton & Longnor have regularly hosted Diabetic Children and the groups in Teesdale, Glossop, Evesham and Crewe have concentrated on young children and their mothers.
Catterick host children from Korma School, for whom they also collect aid. Mid Essex have a long standing link with the Terekhovka Centre, from where they take about 18 children every Summer, and Moray have also hosted children from this lgvely after-school centre. Solihull in recent years have taken children from Svetlagorsk Orphanage and found this quite challenging, but very rewarding.
Every Summer we have chartered planes into Manchester and Birmingham. Both airports have been wonderfully supportive; we have had free handling from Servisair in Manchester and Aviance in Birmingham, and food provided  for the flights from both airports by Alpha Catering. We are also very grateful for the support of Yuri Sobolev, Belavia’s manager in the UK for being so accommodating in meeting all our needs.

‘I feel as if I am living in a fairy tale. The only angry villain is Chernobyl and all the people here are heroes trying to beat him’
13 year old Tamara Subotko

‘It seems to me that we all live in one and the same big house and something terrible happened in it. All the inhabitants of the house are trying to help and I am sure that all together we will be able to overcome this tragedy’     
12 year old Tanya Zhukova