INTERVIEWS

THE CHILDREN OF CHERNOBYL

In our second feature marking 25 years since the Chernobyl disaster, Jahan Hoggarth, discovers the hope that the charity, Chernobyl Children's Life Line, is providing victims of the environmental and humanitarian tragedy.

Few things in life are more sacred and heart-warming than a mother breastfeeding her newborn baby. But when a Belorussian mother breastfeeds her baby, she worries that she is poisoning it with Caesium 137.

Twenty-five years ago the words nuclear disaster and Chernobyl became synonymous, when Reactor No.4 exploded as a result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The immediate radiation release affected the livelihoods and futures of thousands of people.

A quarter of a century later the problems of Chernobyl still exist, and some are more acute than ever.

For the first few years there was help from the Soviet government, which set up a separate budget for Chernobyl and the victims of the disaster. Nowadays, help only exists in the form of charities and donations from private individuals.

Chernobyl Children's Life Line (CCLL) is one of the charities that have made it possible for thousands of children affected by the disaster to visit the UK for a recuperative holiday, where they stay with host families for four weeks.   

Founded in 1991 by Victor Mizzi (the first foreigner to be awarded Belarus' highest award, the Order of Francysk Skaryna), CCLL has helped over 46,000 children in the last 20 years.  Run by five people at the charity's headquarters in Surrey, CCLL has 150 Links (branches) in locations throughout the UK. Each Link lines up host families and activities, as well as dental and eye checks. Dentists and opticians provide these services at their own expense, in their spare time. 

Exhausted and drained from ongoing colds, flu and the constant dangers of cancer, the children look forward to swapping their hospital beds for a fun-filled month of visiting beaches, theme parks, steam trains, cave exploration and zoos - attractions most of them will never have seen before.

'The kids change a lot from the first day they arrive. From quiet and subdued, to happy and fulfilled,' says CIWEM member Chris Broome, the Derby and Burton Link chairman. 'We take them to Chatsworth House, into its gardens and grounds. There are lots of water features there, which they find fascinating.' During their visit to a fire station the children were taught how to put out a fire and are given smoke alarms to take home.

According to experts, a four-week holiday in a clean environment reduces radiation levels in a child's body by 50-80 per cent. However, that level then increases dramatically over the course of the next few months, when children return to their contaminated lives. 

'Ninety per cent of children in the zones contaminated today were in good health in 1985. Only six per cent are healthy today,' says Dennis Vystavkin, CCLL's chief executive.

As a direct result of the disaster, the surrounding towns and villages have suffered economically, leaving the majority of the population to survive on offerings from their contaminated allotments and foraging in forests for mushrooms and berries. Corn is still sowed and harvested from radioactive soil, cows graze on contaminated grass, and radiation remains in the food chain.

This is their lot in life. The invisible enemy, radiation, is all around them: in food, in water, even in the wood they burn in order to survive temperatures that drop below -35 degrees Celsius. Contaminated logs release radioactive elements as they burn in open fireplaces. In winter, all the people have to eat is what they preserved during the summer.  In remote villages, there are no supermarkets or shops.

Belorussian hospitals are overflowing with children suffering from cancer, with mothers despairing on bedside floors. Those whose children are clear for now are at their wits' end, unable to offer their children clean, healthy food, knowing that at some point the child might develop cancer or another terminal disease.

CCLL is often asked to help with antibiotics, as in the case of baby Lolita from the Gomel region. She was treated for leukaemia for the first 14 months of her life. As doctors prepared her for a bone marrow transplant, Lolita contracted an infection in her spine. CCLL raised the money to buy antibiotics for Lolita's treatment. Sadly, the delay increased the spread of the infection in the baby's spine and complicated her cancer treatment. She died two weeks later.

Not all children that travel to the UK on holiday are ill or recovering. Some can be fairly healthy and show no sign of illness, such as Aleksei - a pink-cheeked boy, fast runner and a tearaway. People questioned how suitable this healthy looking boy was for a recuperative holiday. But a few months later he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and underwent four rounds of chemotherapy.

Like a poisonous trellis, radioactivity has weaved itself into people's everyday lives. At school, children learn how to cook with radioactive mushrooms and potatoes. Minimising radiation is part of the national curriculum in Belarus.

If the situation is so tragic, why isn't the world worried? 'Chernobyl has lost its news appeal. For most Westerners this is something that happened nearly three decades ago, and with all that has happened to the world since then it seems too much like old news to consider,' replies Vystavkin.  'It took fears of a new leak, and Japan's crisis, for people to remember what happened in Chernobyl 25 years ago.'

According to Vystavkin, the only real solution would be to move people away from affected areas, breaking the chain of food growth, production and export from contaminated soils. But this is an impossible task - the danger zone spreads far beyond Chernobyl.

'We are talking about regions of Belarus exceeding the size of Wales, which are heavily populated and contaminated,' he says. 'In an ideal world all contaminated areas would be cleared of people, fenced off and safeguarded as a museum, a monument to human negligence.'

When asked about the difficulties children face at home on a daily basis, Vystavkin sighs. The charity is cautious about criticising the government and Belorussian authorities, but not out of fear for themselves: 'We are not above politics and have no intention to stand on corners with protest banners, because in doing so we would lose access to the children who need us. We are working hard to overcome difficulties and resolve bureaucratic obstacles to save those in need.'

As the media hype surrounding Chernobyl died down, so did the Belorussian government's philanthropy. Recreational centres, 'sanatoriums' initially built for single-parent families or those with alcoholic parents, offered free medical care and check-ups. Recently commercialised, they now charge sick children for the privilege of a recuperative holiday.

Belorussian governmental programmes are desperately trying to attract people back to the deserted lands, issuing signed and approved statements saying it is safe to go back. But these lands are still heavily contaminated with Caesium 137, and with its half life of 30 years, it is questionable how that can be possible.

'To accept there is fault means someone has to accept responsibility,' says Vystavkin. 'The government hasn't got the money to solve this problem by cutting off this once bread-basket of Belarus.'

Vystavkin says that CCLL's aim is to lower the disaster's impact on children. 'Through our centres and our partners, we are trying to show people that there is still hope.' In their letters to CCLL, Belorussian parents often say how a holiday in the UK has changed their children's lives. Boosted by the interest from host families and determined to stay in touch, children are keen to learn English and develop their knowledge of the world outside their village communities.

In 20 years of the charity's work, CCLL have seen how relationships between host families and Chernobyl children have developed into long-lasting personal friendships. Host families see children grow into educated adults who go on to form families of their own and whose children come to visit the same families in the UK. Letters addressed to host families in Britain often begin: 'My dear second Mama...' 

'In Britain, more than anywhere else, charity is an important part of everyday life,' comments Vystavkin. 'And this culture of being charitable trickles its way into the lives and minds of Chernobyl children, teaching them the importance and appreciation of helping others.' Children take home a positive set of improvements: health, general outlook, new experiences and most of all - hope.

At CCLL they say charity works both ways. From Belarusians, British hosts learn how simple things like being healthy or having a happy family are just as rewarding as foreign holidays or new computer games. Some families visit Belarus to learn firsthand about walking for miles in the snow to fetch water in the freezing temperatures of the Belorussian winter. Living in such rundown communities is often seen as unimaginable to many Westerners. And yet, seeing the local population content can give a whole new spin to Western aims and values.

Yet all this may be about to change. From this year, the UK Border Agency will be allocating just 2,850 complimentary visas for children from Ukraine and Belarus. CCLL will receive a large proportion of those, but that will barely cover two thirds of the children they bring to the UK every year. A further blow will come in two years' time, when this scheme will be scrapped and children will be required to pay for their visas.

CCLL receives no support from the British government, in contrast to Germany, which grants similar charities up to a million Euros per year. Still, examples of British generosity are overwhelming, says Vystavkin. Families are known to refuse themselves Christmas presents in order to pay for a holiday for a child from Chernobyl. There are even cases of elderly couples downsizing and moving to smaller houses and donating part of the money saved to CCLL.

Vystavkin concludes: 'What the British government needs to understand is that whilst they are paying hefty sums from the government's budget to PR companies to promote Britain around the world through cultural and art exhibitions, we develop and promote the country's image through our charity work much better and for free.'