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Events Mark 18th Anniversary of Chernobyl Disaster
*Ed note--Ali Hewson is patron of Chernobyl Children's Project and has organized many fund-raising events for the group, including fashion shows featuring Larry Mullen and The Edge. U2 has supported this cause for many years and has taken part in Stop Sellafield protests to ensure that a Chernobyl-type catastrophe does not occur in Ireland.
New York City, New York --International attention will be refocused on the Chernobyl nuclear accident this Tuesday April 27, as the UN and Chernobyl Children?s Project International work together to mark the 18th anniversary of the accident with a screening of the Oscar-winning HBO documentary ?Chernobyl Heart? at a special session at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
April 26th is the anniversary of the disaster, which has devastated the lives of an estimated 7 million people living in the affected areas of Belarus, Western Russia and the Ukraine.
Adi Roche, the Founder and Executive Director of Chernobyl Children?s Project Ireland and International is prominently featured in ?Chernobyl Heart.? As the keynote speaker at the UN event, Roche will outline new ways in which American NGOs are responding to this tragedy with long-term, community-based solutions.
During the UN session, Roche will announce two medical missions to Belarus to coincide with the 18th anniversary of Chernobyl. Chernobyl Children?s Project International (CCPI), the US-affiliate of CCP, will launch the first mission of a five-year partnership with Operation Smile to perform surgeries and training to address the unusually high incidence of cleft-lip/cleft palate surgery that is seen in Belarus. Additionally CCPI will bring the International Children?s Heart Foundation, whose Dr. William Novick appears in ?Chernobyl Heart,? on a series of missions to perform life-saving pediatric cardiac surgeries. Under the financial and organizational sponsorship of CCPI, both missions will train and work closely with Belarusian medical professionals, so that children can benefit from these missions year-round. The objective of both missions it to enhance self-sufficiency in Belarus.
At the UN event Adi Roche will also discuss the urgency of implementing key projects aimed at deterring future radioactive catastrophe at the Chernobyl reactor. The Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) is planning the construction of a large ?shield? to cover the crumbling sarcophagus of the destroyed nuclear reactor. The structure will, it is hoped, dramatically reduce the likelihood of further releases of radioactive contamination. Completion for the project was initially targeted for 2005.
At the time of the original explosion there were 200 tons of nuclear fuel in the reactor. Only 3% of this was expelled in the blast, leaving 216 tons of uranium and plutonium and 30 tons of radioactive dust behind in the crumbling structure. Many scientists and government officials fear that further deterioration of the abandoned reactor could hasten an even more serious environmental disaster than that which occurred in 1986.
For more on CCPI, visit www.ccp-intl.org.
-- Chernobyl Children's Project International
*Ed note--Ali Hewson is patron of Chernobyl Children's Project and has organized many fund-raising events for the group, including fashion shows featuring Larry Mullen and The Edge. U2 has supported this cause for many years and has taken part in Stop Sellafield protests to ensure that a Chernobyl-type catastrophe does not occur in Ireland.
New York City, New York --International attention will be refocused on the Chernobyl nuclear accident this Tuesday April 27, as the UN and Chernobyl Children?s Project International work together to mark the 18th anniversary of the accident with a screening of the Oscar-winning HBO documentary ?Chernobyl Heart? at a special session at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
April 26th is the anniversary of the disaster, which has devastated the lives of an estimated 7 million people living in the affected areas of Belarus, Western Russia and the Ukraine.
Adi Roche, the Founder and Executive Director of Chernobyl Children?s Project Ireland and International is prominently featured in ?Chernobyl Heart.? As the keynote speaker at the UN event, Roche will outline new ways in which American NGOs are responding to this tragedy with long-term, community-based solutions.
During the UN session, Roche will announce two medical missions to Belarus to coincide with the 18th anniversary of Chernobyl. Chernobyl Children?s Project International (CCPI), the US-affiliate of CCP, will launch the first mission of a five-year partnership with Operation Smile to perform surgeries and training to address the unusually high incidence of cleft-lip/cleft palate surgery that is seen in Belarus. Additionally CCPI will bring the International Children?s Heart Foundation, whose Dr. William Novick appears in ?Chernobyl Heart,? on a series of missions to perform life-saving pediatric cardiac surgeries. Under the financial and organizational sponsorship of CCPI, both missions will train and work closely with Belarusian medical professionals, so that children can benefit from these missions year-round. The objective of both missions it to enhance self-sufficiency in Belarus.
At the UN event Adi Roche will also discuss the urgency of implementing key projects aimed at deterring future radioactive catastrophe at the Chernobyl reactor. The Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) is planning the construction of a large ?shield? to cover the crumbling sarcophagus of the destroyed nuclear reactor. The structure will, it is hoped, dramatically reduce the likelihood of further releases of radioactive contamination. Completion for the project was initially targeted for 2005.
At the time of the original explosion there were 200 tons of nuclear fuel in the reactor. Only 3% of this was expelled in the blast, leaving 216 tons of uranium and plutonium and 30 tons of radioactive dust behind in the crumbling structure. Many scientists and government officials fear that further deterioration of the abandoned reactor could hasten an even more serious environmental disaster than that which occurred in 1986.
For more on CCPI, visit www.ccp-intl.org.
-- Chernobyl Children's Project International
