how we help

Click here to see a film of our volunteers at work and to meet some of the children we help.

Click here to see what you can do to help.

Click here see one of our volunteers describe her personal experience on CBS News.

Chernobyl Children's Project International works in partnership with families and communities to support their recovery from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

Our largely volunteer organization works in partnership with the people of Belarus and Ukraine to form professional peer relationships and to help them overcome the domino effect of poverty, poor health, and social issues that continue to plague so many, even more than 20 years after the accident.

You can support any of these programs by clicking the green DONATE NOW button on the upper right hand side of your screen. 

Take a poll at the end of the page to let us know which of  these programs you think is the most important one.

Programs supported by your donations include:
 

Lifesaving children's heart operations: Your donations have saved the lives of hundreds of children suffering from a marked increase in cardiac birth defects since the Chernobyl disaster. American surgical teams travel to Belarus to save lives and train local physicians.  In Belarus, our intervention has reduce the waiting list for life saving surgery from 7000 to 2400.  In May 2008, we completed a surgical mission to Khakiv, Ukraine, saving 17 young lives.  An August 2008 we completed a mission to Odessa, where 15 lives were saved. We plan further surgery and training trips to Donetsk and Kyiv by the end of 2008.

• Recuperation camps and programs for the most needy children:  Over 17,000 children from contaminated regions have spent winter and summer holidays with families in Ireland. CCPI hosts many other fun learning and recreational programs in their home country of Belarus . .  including programs for children recovering from heart surgery and cancer, and seriously disabled children on theirs first trips away from orphanages. And every year,  we collect funds to bring up to 30 terminally ill children to Ireland to spend two weeks  in Paul Newman's Barrettstown Camp.
• Nursing and therapeutic training programs:  Volunteer nurses, dentists, surgeons, and physical/occupational/speech-language therapists travel to Chernobyl affected regions to work directly with children in understaffed institutions and provide much needed training to their local counterparts. Training is an important aspect of our mission because it allows local citizens to become self sufficient and adept at solving their own problems.
• Community centers and programs:  Targeting the most under served and at risk communities with committed and visionary local leadership, we build community centers that serve a wide variety of needs . . . day care for working parents, therapeutic services for disabled children, child care classes, vocational training and employment services, microcredit facilities, after school and homework help, computer centers, and more.  We have completed these centers in the Belarusian communities of Zhytkovichi and Petrikov, and will follow with centers in Buda Kashaleva and Glutsk. We believe that these community centers will restore communities and and making a lasting and long term impact on people's lives. 
• Foster homes and at home care for disabled and ill children:  CCPI is committed to programs that offer families alternatives to institutionalizing their children and allow children to be raised in loving homes of their own.  Today, we have put together 14 foster families -- "homes of hope" --  each raising children who previously lived in orphanages.  Another program takes seriously ill children off waiting lists for orphanages by managing home-help services and training  for their families. A hospice program in the Belarusian city of Gomel provides medical and psychological support for families who care for their critically ill children in their homes.
• Direct Aid:  For many years, CCPI sent an annual "convoy" of aid through Europe to deliver supplies to orphanages, hospitals, and community centers in Chernobyl affected regions.  This successful program has delivered over $70 million worth of private donated aid.  This program made sense in a time when basic supplies were simply not readily available in Belarus.  Now we take a different approach -- we work closely with local organizations to decide what sort of supplies are needed most, and we purchase these supplies locally and deliver them directly into the hands of communities that need them most. In this partnership, we can deliver what is really needed, and not what we might think they need. And, importantly, we are buying locally and thus contributing to to the local economy, income, and employment, which helps everyone. Already this year, CCPI has spent $500,000 on directly-purchased aid. Our in country staff, together with frequent management visits, ensures that aid is going directly where needed and used appropriately.