Click here to donate now
Adi Roche and Ali Hewson here. Could you take just a minute to imagine the scene in a state institution in Belarus on Christmas Day?
The room is full of children with severe disabilities and medical problems. There are no sounds of joy or happiness. No laughter. No music.
Hope left this place a long time ago.
For these “Grandchildren of Chernobyl”, this bleak institution is the only home they’ve ever known.
Their life-limiting conditions make 24/7 intensive care too difficult to provide at home – and also, far too expensive, for their families.
But luckily, kind-hearted people in Ireland have supported our crucial Hospice and Community Care Programme. And their amazing gift makes the impossible, possible.
It makes it possible for families to care for their child at home.
It helps pay for expert medical staff to attend a child in their own home. It helps provide the medication a child with severe disabilities needs to continue breathing. It helps keep them safe and protected in the loving care of their families.
Nastya and her mother, Luda
This is the astonishing power of what you can do for a child – for a family – in Belarus today.
Will you make one of the most extraordinary Christmas gifts possible? Will you ensure a sick Chernobyl child can be cared for at home for many Christmases to come? Will you make a memorable gift this Christmas?
Because of Covid-19, CCI’s usual fundraising activity could not happen in 2021. Our resources are at breaking point. That’s why this appeal is our most crucial ever.
It breaks my heart that so many children are already in institutions. Please, help us to protect the ones that are not yet incarcerated.
Myself, Nasyta, and Luda
For instance, you can support wonderful children like Nastya. She has hydrocephaly, brain damage and epilepsy, and every 30 minutes, a machine has to suction out her lungs. She has had to stay lying down since she was 7 years old.
The Hospice and Community Care Programme has provided her family with medication that reduces the severity of her seizures, as well as a nurse to help Nastya’s mum – so she has time to look after her ailing father too.
Your unique Christmas gift from Ireland to Chernobyl will make it possible for each child in need to have a care team – a doctor, nurse, social worker, and psychologist – to treat and provide medication and supplies…at no cost.
Our multi-disciplinary teams also provide physiotherapy and massages to help children feel as little pain as possible.
Your incredible help today means that whenever the child looks up, a friendly, familiar face is there. Someone who loves them is always nearby. They are never alone.
This Christmas, will you make sure no child in Chernobyl is forgotten and neglected?
Your extraordinary kindness can give a child the greatest gift of all this Christmas: a life full of care, love and attention – at home in the loving arms of their family.
I cannot think of any gift more powerful. Or more hopeful.
Wishing you and your family a very happy and blessed Christmas.
P.S. Keeping the “Grandchildren of Chernobyl” in their loving family homes – and out of bleak and unsafe institutions – is absolutely vital. Our usual fundraising activity did not happen in 2021 – so this appeal is our most urgent ever. Please, will you keep more children loved, supported and safe at home this Christmas? Click here to donate. Thank you!
