Chernobyl victims still need help, charity group says
As nuclear disaster fades into history, aid group tries to refocus attention on the plight of children
By Celeste Williams
Staff Writer
February 24, 2001
The world "Chernobyl" will always mean disaster for the world. But to some, the disaster is home, a place, forever in the toxic shadow of a nuclear tragedy.
The 1986 nuclear power plant explosion in the former Soviet Union poisoned millions, many of them children who continue to suffer from the massive radiation.
The plant officially closed in December, however, the public needs to know that the need for help is ongoing.
"The interest has kind of drifted off, but the disaster rages on" said Michael A. Snyder, chairman of LifeNets, an Indianapolis-based organization begun in 1998 with an informal network of churches, relief groups and individuals to help needy children around the word.
Snyder, a vice president with Expidant, is joined by Victor Kubik, who is president of LifeNets. Kubik brings a personal viewpoint to this tragedy since his parents are from that part of the world.
Kubik's Ukrainian family lived in displacement camp for four years during World War II and emigrated to the United States in 1949. Kubik, a minister, visited the Chernobyl region in 1996 and later began organizing relief shipments.
LifeNets supports the Chernihev Center of Medical Social Rehabilitation just 40 miles from the abandoned nuclear power plant. Founded in 1996 a former Ukrainian physician, the hospital treats children suffering effects of the disaster -- from cancer physical deformities to psychological and developmental damage.
Snyder and the clinics mission is unique because it "also treats the social components" of the disaster -- helping children cope emotionally, as well as attending to their physical needs.
Kubik said the people have met their lot in life with characteristic stoicism and a degree of resignation in what they may see as fate.
"Your see the children on crutches -- and these are children born after the disaster -- and you realize that they have nothing, nothing, nothing. It only has not only debilitated their immune systems," he said, " it has created a fear -- a radio phobia."
It did not help, Kubik said, that most of hospitals were cold and ill-equipped.
"It's grim," he said. The doctors were begging for certain medicines.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick."
LifeNets estimates that through donation, they will be able to help the clinic assist more children. As little as $275 will care or a child for a month said Snyder. The U.S. State Department ships supplies for free.
Snyder and Kubik said Hoosiers have been very generous to their cause including playing host to Dr. Vasyl Pasechnik in 1999 -- the physician who directs the children's clinic.
Kubik says the disaster seems far awya to people in the West. "But Chernoybl ought to remind people that this could happen anywhere"
Contact Celeste Williams
317 444-6367
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How to Donate
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P.O. Box 88165
Indianapolis, Indiana 46208