Mixed emotions: Woman reflects on disaster and adoption

“WITHOUT her, I wouldn’t be here.”

Those were the simple but powerful words from Elena Canty, 21, yesterday, as she paid tribute to the woman who saved her from a bleak future in a Ukrainian institution more than 15 years ago.

Elena was born in Belarus in 1990 with brittle bones and scoliosis — four years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

While there is no direct link between her medical condition and the power plant accident, Elena, who uses a wheelchair, is one of thousands of children from the contaminated region who were born after the disaster with birth defects.

But she was brought to Ireland by Fiona Corcoran and the Greater Chernobyl Cause in 1995 and her adoption by Lorraine and Thomas Canty, from Ballyvolane in Cork, was finalised in 1999.

Elena, who is now studying advertising and PR in the Cork College of Commerce, attended yesterday’s commemorative event in Cork’s Bishop Lucey Park.

“It’s a day of mixed emotions, really,” she said. “You feel upset remembering such a huge disaster, but you feel happy too because of the work the charity has done.”

She said thousands of people in Belarus, the Ukraine and western Russia have been helped by the various Irish charities, like the Greater Chernobyl Cause, over the last 25 years.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have been able to cope,” she said.

“Fiona has done so much. She’s just so amazing. I wouldn’t be here without her.”

Fiona said Elena, her god-daughter, is her “inspiration”.

It is estimated that some 21,000 children from the contaminated region have enjoyed holidays with Irish host families over the last 25 years, and that a further 250 children have been adopted and made new lives here.