Today is the 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl. April 26, 1986 marked the world's worst nuclear accident. It happened in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Chernobyl lies near the border of Belarus, a small country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union. When the nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, it released 400 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima. "One-fifth of Belarus' agricultural land was contaminated following the blast at the Ukrainian nuclear reactor and around 70 percent of the fallout fell in Belarus." Click here to access a full story on the disaster.
Why we care? Besides the fact that many people died as a direct result of the blast, thousands more have suffered deaths, many due to cancer, in the past 25 years. Since 1997, I have been involved with a group, ABRO , that brings Belorussian children to the US for six weeks each summer to escape the radiation (it doesn't go away for 10,000 years) and receive medical and dental treatment. I started volunteering as an interpreter for a friend in North Carolina who hosted children, and in 2002 Matt and I began hosting Masha--a then seven year old girl, who stayed with us for six weeks to get medical care and escape the radiation. Masha is blind in her right eye (most likely due to effects of radiation) and lives with her mother, father and brother in a small "house" with no indoor toilet. Over the past nine years we have come to know and love her. For six summers, she has been in our home and is our oldest "daughter". Her last visit was in the summer of 2008, so many of you may not know her, but some of you do and you love her as much as we do. This summer, we have been able to invite her to come visit our home once again. We are thrilled to welcome her back and to introduce her to Gracie and Caroline. Masha is now 16 years old. She is a great student and studies very hard at her school so she can get a scholarship to study at a university. Her family is very poor and each year we send home clothes and school supplies for the next year.
The cost for the program is $2,150, this includes her plane ticket to North Carolina, emergency medical travel insurance and the cost of obtaining her visa(she has to travel to Moscow, Russia to get her visa since there is no embassy in Belarus). On top of this, we will have to buy a ticket to fly her to Utah and back to North Carolina as well as clothes and supplies to send home with her. It's a costly endeavor, but it changes her life, helps keep her healthier, and gives her hope, so its well worth it. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping our family bring Masha to the US this summer or help outfit her to go back home, all donations are tax deductible. Just drop us an email or leave us a comment and we'll let you know how you can help:) And if you know of anyone with frequent flyer miles that need to be used before the end of August, we'd love to help them out and use them for her ticket from North Carolina to Utah. We can't remove the radiation from Belarus, but we can change the life of one girl who lives there!
We're in. Let me know.
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