Chernobyl Children's Project International

the little ears and what I learned

I have a memory of a child I met at  the Vesnova Asylum in a Chernobyl affected region of rural Belarus.  His photo is to the left.  He was in terrible discomfort. At the base of each earlobe, he had a bloody tear, as if the earlobes themselves were ripping from the sides of his head.  (The pink color you see in the photo is mecurichrome. If you're over 45, you will remember being painted with this wound disinfectant.)

I had never seen anything like it this, and couldn't imagine the cause. I pointed it out to Marie Cox, our medical program director.  Marie was a  Chernobyl Children's Project International volunteer for years before joining the staff.  She had seen cases like this before.  It was indeed a tear -- a tear caused by a (hurried and overworked) orphanage caregiver repeatedly and roughly pulling a too-tight shirt over the boy's head. 

I was so stunned by this it took me a while to really take it in. I thought about the playful and giggle-y times I've had with my kids getting them undressed for the bath.  Then I tried to imagine someone pulling their jersey up so hard that their earlobes tore . . . and then having it happen to them over and over again.

We deal with a lot of big, complex issues every day in this work . . . child abandonment, serious illness, disability, poverty.  Complex problems don't have quick-fix solutions.

The huge establishment aid organizations like UN and unicef are good about reminding smaller organizations (like us) that we need to focus on the Big Picture -- on helping whole communities over the long term.  And of course they are right!  But I hope we never get so big that we can't care about one child's little ears. 

Last week, we brought in 7 new caregivers to assist nurses at Vesnova, and to do better by these kids.  It's not a quick fix. We will still need to work on training, more training, and procedures and process.  We won't ignore the important "big picture" -- giving families alternatives to putting their children in orphanages. But we believe you also also want us to think small. 

100+ chernobyl volunteers set to return home today

Over 100 Irish, Australian and American volunteers will return home today after spending three weeks in Chernobyl affected regions of Belarus. 

We employ about 20 local staff in Belarus, have partnerships with a number of local organizations, and at any given time we usually have volunteers and program directors "in the field."  This trip, however, was a large scale effort many months in the planning. 

Most of the volunteers on this trip were were builders -- carpenters, plumbers, masons, and the like who gave up their vacation time to come and complete work on the Vesnova Asylum in Belarus.  (Here's more about how we help.)  Nurses and therapeutic staff joined the teams in Vesnova, where they trained local caretakers in proper techniques and followed up on care plans for the children, who have a wide range of physical and intellectual abilities.  About 50 very serious ill children live in the facility's "high dependency unit" and require extraordinary care.   

As this work was happening, a management team led by CCPI founder Adi Roche visited projects across the country and met with employees, local partners, and government officials.  Key areas for evaluation were our foster care program and community care program in Minsk.  Adi, joined by Jim Clarken -- our new general manager in Ireland -- and Marie Cox, our medical care program  director, also examined the effectiveness of a new "aid direct" program that provides year round deliveries of necessary supplies for our community centers.  This program improves upon our  annual aid convoy.  Now, we are able to deliver good and supplies as needed, and we are purchasing locally, which puts aid dollars back into the local community to raise the standard of living for all.  Now that certain supplies are readily available in Belarus -- which was not the case when we first started our work in the country -- we are seeing huge cost efficiencies in purchasing locally rather than trucking across Europe! 

The management team visited our completed community centers in Zhitkovichy and Petrikov, and surveyed potential new sites in Glutsk and Buda-Kachalova.  Our community centers and programs target the most under served and at risk communities.  The centers serve a wide variety of community needs . . . therapeutic services for disabled children, child care classes, vocational training and employment services, homework help, computer centers, and more.  Our objective is to give communities the means they need to become self sufficient and avoid the downward spiral of poverty and hopelessness that leads families to place their children in institutions.

We also spent time examining our hospice program in Gomel, to ensure that the needs of families with the most seriously ill children are being properly met by our team of local nurses and psychologists. Meeting these families face to face allows us to hear directly from them whether we are doing a good job and how we can improve our services in the community.

Even as we examined our on board projects, the seeds of new ones were sown in meetings with community leaders across the country who are eager to move forward from Chernobyl.  We'll report back with our progress.