Chernobyl Children's Project International

Chernobyl Children's Project International

Chernobyl Children's Project International (CCPI) is a United Nations-accredited international development, medical, and humanitarian organization that works with children, families and communities that continue to be affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

Contents

Purpose

The organization was founded in Ireland in 1991 by Adi Roche, and expanded into the United States in 2001. CCPI works with families and communities in Chernobyl affected regions to help them to overcome the domino effect of poverty, poor health, and social and psychosocial impact that was the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Programs of Chernobyl Children's Project International include:

- Children's cardiac surgery program: CCPI sends surgical teams into Belarus to perform operations and train local doctors.
- Nursing and therapeutic training programs: CCPI sends volunteer nurses and physical/occupational/speech-language therapists to Chernobyl affected regions to work directly with children in understaffed medical institutions and provide training to their local counterparts.
- Community centers and programs: CCPI builds community centers in under served and at risk communities. These centers host services such as: day care for working parents, therapeutic services for disabled children, child care classes, vocational training, employment services, after school programs and computer centers.
- Foster homes and at home care for disabled children: CCPI provides support to families who take children out of orphanages to raise in their own homes. Currently, 14 families are in the program. Another program takes seriously disabled children off the waiting list for orphanages by managing home help services and training for their families.
- Rest and recuperation programs: CCPI has sponsored over 12,000 children from contaminated areas to spend summer and winter holidays families in Ireland. CCPI hosted many other children in camps in their home country of Belarus, including special camps for children recovering from heart surgery and cancer, and seriously disabled children.
- Hospice: A hospice program in the Gomel regions provides at home medical and psychological support for families of the most seriously ill children.
- "Aid Direct" humanitarian aid: CCPI purchases and delivers necessary medical and humanitarian supplies in Belarus, for delivery to project sites and community centers throughout the country.

Recognition

  • The organization was the focus of the Academy-Award winning film, Chernobyl Heart.
  • All proceeds from the 1998 U2 single, "Sweetest Thing," were donated to CCPI by Ali Hewson.
  • The organization's volunteer activities were featured in the April 26, 2006 edition of PEOPLE magazine.
  • The organization was awarded "Special Congressional Recognition" in 2006, for "outstanding humanitarian work."

See also

External links

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