Chernobyl’s Forgotten Children by Liz Hutton coordinator

On 30th October I started the long journey to Belarus and on Monday 2nd November I met up with Larisa, the co-ordinator of the Belarusian Children’s Charity in Gomel. Two years ago after a successful five years of raising money and bringing children over from Gomel through the Friends of Chernobyl’s Children, some of the ex trustees decided to form a new group to carry on helping the children in Gomel who don’t get the chance to come to Great Britain on visits.
We decided to start a new charity which we called Chernobyl’s Forgotten Children. Rrom the beginning of 2008 we started to have a few fund raising events. We started with a Race night, a Barn dance and finally a Live band night which was held at Barkby Village Hall last March. Mixed in with these events were a few coffee mornings and quizzes and we eventually raised just under £3,000. So a big thank you goes out to all the people who generously donated to these events and everyone who helped put them together.
£3,000 perhaps doesn’t sound a great deal to us in Britain but in Belarus the money goes a long way. As a group we decided to split the money between to two projects we had previously helped in the past through Friends of Chernobyl’s Children. The two projects were Ulukovye Children’s Orphanage and Gomel Children’s Home.
We purchased replacement plastic for the greenhouses (this is very important as it provides a source of food and an income for the orphanage), five new wash basins and taps and new flooring for the laundry room in the Ulukovye children’s orphanage. This houses children from the age of approx three to 16 who have learning disabilities. This orphanage is not only a home to these children but also a school and we were greeted with such a friendly welcome from the manager to all the children we met. We were served with lunch and had a great few hours looking around.
After we had lunch were then met by Maria from the Gomel Children’s Home. We then went to the furniture shop to purchase five new beds and mattresses. These were then delivered back to the home where we met a few of the children who live there. This home was a lot different from the orphanage in that the children who live there go to school in the day. Maria, the manager tries to create small families within the home with older children and younger children mixed, who then create a bonding between them. We felt that the relationship between the children was so warming. This is where, two years ago we supplied a kitchen for the halfway house as they called it, which was a stop gap for the children from the age of 16 when they have to leave, this is because the government no longer supplies them with a home, until the age of 18 when they have to find their own accommodation. They have spaces for eight young adults to live and learn how to cook and wash etc for themselves. We purchased a set of saucepans for them on this visit to add to their kitchen.
We had enough money left to purchase a replacement UPVC window for one of the bedrooms. This makes the rooms much warmer as the old windows lost a lot of heat and were so draughty.
It was an extremely busy day, but very worthwhile and we spent in total £2,500. I would like to think that everyone who helped us raise this money feels as though it was spent wisely and hopefully in the future we can rely on your support for raising even more.
A big thank you again goes out to everyone who helped. If you would like any further information on the charity then please feel free to contact myself Steve Booth on 0116 260 2608 or Liz Hutton on 0116 260 8245. We also have a website www.chernobylsforgottenchildren.org.uk please take a look.