Tributes paid to charity workers
President Mary McAleese paid tribute to men and women who supported Chernobyl Children’s International (CCI) over the past 25 years.
Mrs McAleese said the lives of people in the Ukraine and Belarus changed forever on April 26, 1986, following a series of explosions at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
“Twenty-five years later their food and air remains contaminated and they and their children suffer from acute thyroid, respiratory and immune-system problems and other diseases that very probably emanate from that terrible day,” she said.
“For them that day was not an event but the beginning of a process — one they do not have the luxury of forgetting for it is ever-present. And since they cannot forget, neither should we.”
The President honoured the charity’s top 25 volunteers at a Ceremony of Hope in Farmleigh. Aged from 17 to 80, some have saved lives through surgeries, others provided life-saving equipment and many opened their homes to children on rest and recuperation trips to Ireland.
Several also gave up their time year after year to raise funds or build and refurbish orphanages and institutions where sick children are nursed back to health.
“We all knew it was a catastrophe and most of us knew that the repercussions would be serious,” Mrs McAleese said. “But how many of us realised that, a quarter of a century later, the fallout would still be affecting the lives of so many people — so many of them not even born on that fateful spring day 25 years ago.”
A posthumous award was given in the memory of Ann Carolan, Trim, Co Meath, to her adopted Belarusian daughter Raisa, who is one of the organisation’s youngest volunteers.
Ms Carolan, who died last year, worked tirelessly for the organisation, helping underprivileged children in Belarus, as well as giving Raisa a second chance at life in Ireland.
CCI came across Raisa, who was born with physical impairments that denied her the ability to walk or eat properly, in the a home for abandoned babies in Belarus.
Today, after 24 operations, she manages to play basketball from her wheelchair and wants to dedicate her life to helping children with great physical challenges, just like those she has battled all her life.
Speaking ahead of the ceremony, Raisa expressed her delight over the award for her late mother and at getting to meet the President again after spending a number of nights as Mrs McAleese’s guest at Áras an Uachtaráin when she first came to Ireland.
“I remember the great time I spent at Áras an Uachtaráin. I was just 7 years old at the time and the President and her family were so kind to me. Even though my mum is no longer with me she is looking down on us from heaven today. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave me that second chance. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
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