The Greater Chernobyl Cause

IRISH EXAMINER  27 APRIL 2011

Ukraine gives highest honour for Irishwoman | Irish Examiner

AN Irishwoman whose charity has helped thousands of seriously ill children in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has been awarded Ukraine’s highest humanitarian award...

Ukraine gives highest honour for Irishwoman
By Eoin English

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

AN Irishwoman whose charity has helped thousands of seriously ill children in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has been awarded Ukraine’s highest humanitarian award. 

The Ukrainian Ambassador, Sergi Reva, told those gathered at an event in Cork city yesterday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, that his President Viktor Yanukovych signed a decree yesterday morning conferring the Order of Princess Olga on Fiona Corcoran, the founder of the Greater Chernobyl Cause.

A visibly moved Ms Corcoran said she would accept the award on behalf of all who have worked with the charity over the years.

"Our work with the Chernobyl children must continue. We must continue the fight for the forgotten of Ukraine," she said.

"I am appealing once again to the Irish tradition of spontaneous giving, even in these hard economic times here at home.

"Our next aid delivery will include hospital beds, medical equipment, clothes, educational material, toys, washing machines and walking frames — everything you can think of.

"If you haven’t considered making a financial donation before, then I would urge you to do so now so that more young lives can be saved," Ms Corcoran said.

The Greater Chernobyl Cause’s main emphasis is on providing help and life-saving medical equipment for the long-term victims of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, and the growing number of children who are being diagnosed with cancer, leukaemia and acute respiratory infections.

Many of them come from the contaminated areas on the edge of the exclusion zones.

In the city of Malin alone, paediatrician Victoria Bakhlanova says that every third child now has anaemia, low haemoglobin, or some other sort of immunodeficiency.

Ms Corcoran’s charity now has plans to help a children’s rehabilitation centre and the radiological hospital in Kiev where hundreds of children are waiting to be seen.

Sergei Petrovich, the deputy head of mission in the Russian Embassy in Dublin, told those gathered in Cork’s Bishop Lucey Park yesterday, that international co-operation is vital when it comes to working with nuclear power.

He said his country has pledged €45 million to an international fund of €550m agreed at a major conference in Kiev last week which will fund the construction of a new shelter over Chernobyl’s damaged reactor No 4 by 2015.

On April 26, 1986, a reckless safety test at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to an explosion at reactor number four which spewed a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of northern Europe.

The explosion released about 400 times more radiation than the US atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

The initial explosion forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in the most heavily hit areas in Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia.

Large territories were contaminated, several villages and the towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat were abandoned.

The city of Slavutich was built to relocate the people who worked and lived near the Chernobyl power plant.

The United Nations’s World Health Organisation said at the conference in Kiev last week that among the 600,000 people most heavily exposed to the radiation, 4,000 more cancer deaths than average are expected to be eventually found.

Thousands of children developed thyroid cancer, and other health problems, but exactly how many people died is still the subject of debate.

The Greater Chernobyl Causecan be contacted at  Unit 4 Southside Industrial Estate Pouladuff Rd Togher Cork  Ireland
PH  353 21 4323276  Mob  353 87 9536133 
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)   
Website: greaterchernobylcause.ie