Chernobyl Children's Project International

chernobyl music video and song: your download is a donation

This haunting and charming music video by Arkansas based band Cedar-N-Sage captures a moment when a teenage girl shakes off her melancholy by getting involved in a larger purpose:  Helping the most vulnerable children who suffer the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  The video of Times Like These -- originally recorded by the Foo Fighters -- cuts real footage of "our" kids in Chernobyl regions with scenes of the girl transforming herself through awareness, then action.

Cedar-N-Sage produced the video and song to raise funds for children of Chernobyl.  After you watch the video, click on the name of the song to select it and on the "$" sign on the player below to download the song. Artists proceeds will be donated to Chernobyl Children's Project International.

(If you are reading this on email and can't see the video or song player, click over to the Chernobyl Children's Project International website.)

If 1500 people download the song, we'll raise enough money to give one child a life saving heart surgery!  I hope you'll download the song now, and click on the link below to email this post to a friend. When I saw this video I decided to dedicate it to the very special high school students who have creatively raised funds for CCPI, as well as to our volunteers in the USA and Ireland.  Thanks for this, Cedar-N-Sage!

physical therapy volunteer in action & very special chernobyl children off to camps

Pediatric physical and occupational therapist Marisa C. Birkmeier is one of hundreds of Chernobyl Children's Project International volunteers who donate their professional skills to help children affected by the Chernobyl disaster.  Marisa, who holds a doctorate and practices at Children's National Medical Center in Washington DC, recently returned from a trip to Minsk. She was a guest at the Belarusian State Sports University, where she lectured to scores of students and professors on current best practices in their field.  

Afterwards, Marisa accompanied CCPI medical care program coordinators Marie Cox and Valentin Chernyakevich to visit children in our Minsk community care program, a program that helps families take care of their disabled children at home, rather than resort to the nightmare of institutionalization.  The photos show Marisa working with children and sharing techniques to prevent further disability with one of our Belarusian team members. Click here to learn more about the community care program.  If you can, please click here to make a donation to support the program. 

CCPI camps bring fun and hope to disabled children and children recovering from heart disease and cancer.

Again this summer, your donations are making it possible for 200 children who live in contaminated areas of Belarus to attend summer camp on healthy soil. And we have a special commitment to send kids who would not otherwise be able to go.  At our Healthy Hearts camp, we teach good health and fitness habits to children who have received life saving surgery through the cardiac program.  Most of these children lived severely restricted lives prior to surgery. Camp is a place where they can, in many cases for the first time, revel in their new health and socialize with other kids. Our Rainbow of Hope camp is for children in recovering from cancer. Two very special camps welcome children from our community care program and the Vesnova Children's Mental Asylum. 

Meanwhile, CCPI welcomed 1000 children from Chernobyl regions to Ireland this past Sunday, where they will spend summer holidays. Some of the children will be guests at Paul Newman's Barretstown Castle camp for children facing cancer and other life threatening illness.  

first ukrainian "chernobyl heart" kids surgery trip completed . . . 17 lives saved

I'm glad to announce that, through your financial support, a volunteer surgical team led by William Novick MD has completed our first successful children's cardiac surgery mission in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Seventeen children's lives have been saved.

 I just got off the phone with CCPI founder Adi Roche, who attended surgery on a young girl.  "It was such a privilege to witness ... a miracle ... we simply must recommit ourselves to continuing the program." I could hear in her voice how shaken she was by the experience. 

As I have previously posted, Chernobyl Children's Project International will sponsor three more surgical trips to Ukraine this year, investing over $300,000 for surgeries and training of local physicians. The next teams will travel to Odessa, Donetsk, and Kyiv. Your support is very much needed to complete these missions -- you can Donate Now by clicking on the button to your right, or follow this link for our postal address.  Click here to read the stories of other donors to our children's cardiac surgery program.

Yearly in Ukraine, 6,000 children are born with heart defects that will kill them in 3 to 5 years if they do not receive surgery. Few cardiac surgery programs in Ukraine perform surgery on children, and none routinely operate on the smallest or those with the most  complicated defects. Cardiac defects have dramatically increased in Ukraine and Belarus since the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

 CCPI's successful children's surgery program in Belarus has reduced the waiting list for children needing life saving surgery from over 7000 to 2400, through a combination of surgeries and training.  We hope to see this same success repeated in Ukraine.

Tomorrow, Adi -- along with my colleagues Sherrie and Jim Douglas from the CCPI board of directors -- will visit with the first lady of Ukraine Katerina Yushchenko to underscore our commitment to the health of the children in Chernobyl affected regions of both Ukraine and Belarus. Photos in this post (aside from the one of Sherrie and Adi in scrubs) are of Belarusian heart patients, you can see more in the cardiac kids gallery, and as soon as I have fresh photos of children who received surgeries in the past week, I will post them here.