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Message From Adi Roche


The ashes of Hiroshima are beating into our hearts; the ashes of Chernobyl are beating into our hearts.

The ashes of all nuclear explosions that lie heavily on this earth are beating into our hearts, registered in Geiger counters, in the villages, streets and towns of ancient, ancient villages in Belarus, Northern Ukraine and Western Russia - all because of a tragedy that happened at 1.23 a.m on the 26th of April 1986, an accident that has been declared by the United Nations as the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of mankind.

As a result of that accident, the nature of the enemy, being invisible, was carried by the winds all over this entire planet. But the non-nuclear country of Belarus got 70 per cent of the fallout and as a result they've lost a quarter of their land, a quarter of their forests: they've lost their economy. They've lost the health of their children as 90 per cent of the children of Belarus have been affected by Chernobyl. Women are afraid to have children: their birth rates have dropped by 50 per cent, cancer of the thyroid gland has increased by 2,400 per cent. It is now estimated by the United Nations that one out of every four babies born will contract cancer of the thyroid gland.

I believe that it is possible to help the people of Chernobyl by saying to them: you are our brothers, our sisters, our sons, our daughters, that your pain is our pain. And that when their web, their web of life, has been damaged that we recognise that ultimately we damage ourselves. I believe that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness and in our willingness to help the earth that the rewards will be great because our children and our children's children will inherit the planet in all of its beauty, its joy, its question, its wonder and gift. Let it be so....

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The Chernobyl Children's Project Limited is a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee.
Registered in Dublin, Ireland. No. 211588 Registered Charity No. CHY 11477
Directors: Adi Roche, Simon Walsh, Eoin Dinan, Mary Ahern, Helen Barrett, and Helen Faughnan.

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