11:40am Wednesday 1st September 2010
I HAVE just spent a most exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable and unforgettable month of my life.
“Doing what” you may well ask.
I have been foster host mum to four beautiful nine-year-old Chernobyl children from the Ukraine.
“What are Chernobyl children” you may think.
These children live within the radiation fallout area of the nuclear disaster that happened over 20 years ago.
The soil they walk on, the water they drink, the food they eat is all contaminated.
A charity was formed to help these children The Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline. To offer respite care for the children who are the most needy and deprived.
Coming to stay here away from the radiation helps their depleted immune systems to recover and helps to improve their life expectancy. Sadly some of these children are already ill and this is a once in a lifetime experience.
Tragically most do not live to make old people as the cancer and leukaemia and heart disease rates compared to ours is 400 times greater.
All our host families are unpaid volunteers and we are constantly fund raising to be able to bring more children here each year.
We could not do so without the help of some very generous people.
Special thanks go to all our wonderful host families and buddy families, without you we would not exist.
Thank you also to Peter Simpson from Leszan Door To Door With Care for making life so much easier. Judy and Chris Rouse for providing our interpreter with such great hospitality to Susan the dentist at Euro Dental for treating the children. To Spec Savers for eye tests and six pairs of glasses. For donations from friends and colleagues at the Great Western Hospital and for all the support you have given.
Thanks to the following for our days out and special treats. The Works, Bonkers, Kidzabout, Pop In And Paint, Cupcake Passion, Fairy Vicky, Butterfly World, Legoland, Crowdys Hill School, Cotswold Water Park, Cotswold Wildlife Park, Jack Tearooms, Patrick and Chris Hunt Orchard Farm, Cheltenham Lido, Yara’s Fudge, Swanage Steam Railway, Swanage Pier, Brooks Tearoom, Buddies, Corfe Castle, Chococo and Brian Mattock.
LYNETTE CORENGIA
Chairman of Swindon Old Town Link
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