CHERNOBYL CHILDREN'S PROJECT (UK)

Zhuravichi is home to almost 200 children and young adults with disabilities ranging from Downs Syndrome or fairly mild learning difficulty to profound physical and mental disability.

The home is hidden deep in the countryside and even today the majority of people in Belarus are not aware of the existence of such institutions. It took Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) several months to discover where the most disabled children were sent when they left the Abandoned Babies Home.

When the charity first visited Zhuravichi it was very bleak with few toys, no wheelchairs or other aids for physically disabled children, many children spending their whole lives in a cot and the majority receiving no education.

CCP began to take humanitarian aid – educational toys, nappies, clothes and wheelchairs. Then volunteers went to work with the staff, encouraging them to get children out of bed and to give them more care and attention.

For the last eight years the charity has organised a holiday at a sanatorium or holiday camp in a clean part of Belarus. Volunteers from Britain fly out to organise arts and crafts and sports activities for the children and make sure they have a holiday to remember. And the staff who accompany the children are amazed to see how much they are able to do when given the chance.

In 2001 CCP sent many special chairs and walking frames to Zhuravichi, and a physiotherapist and occupational therapist fitted appropriate children to the aids and showed the staff how to use them. Then Luba, the phyiotherapist from the home, was brought to Britain to develop her skills. And four young children – Anya, Anton, Stas and Nazar – came to spend time with families in the UK where they made dramatic improvements, physically and emotionally. The charity then created a small family home for these children.

Over 100 of the children living at Zhuravichi now receive some education. This started largely due to pressure from CCP(UK) on the Social Protection and Education Departments in Gomel. And now it is the policy of the Education Ministry that all children shoudl be educated.

But there are still many of the more physically disabled children who spend much of their time confined to a cot. And it is difficult for the staff to work with children with profound learning disability or autism because there are too few staff and they have received little training.

Zhuravichi has improved greatly in the last few years partly due to the help we have been able to provide and partly because of Polish Nuns who work there all year round. But because it is so big and so isolated, it will never be an ideal home for the children.

In 2004 we helped to get some of the children reassessed and moved to Ulookavye Orphanage or Rechitsa Boarding Home for Children with Cerebral Palsy where they now receive more education and have the chance of a happier childhood.

It is impossible to say how many of the children at Zhuravichi have been disabled due to Chernobyl. Certainly there have been many more children born with disabilities since the accident in 1986. And there are some conditions, such as the children who fail to grow and still look like toddlers in their teens, which ought to be investigated for a connection with radiation damage.

Since 2006 we have been sponsoromg a teacher to work with some of the most mentally disabled young people, who have never had any education, and also funding extra carers to help with the children who spend most of their time in cots. We have received generous support from Lloyds TSB Business Development Team to help with this work.

And we have also brought the Director and some of her staff on educational visits to the UK.

Click here for more pictures from Zhuravichi Children’s Home

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