A €200,000 programme to help provide future care for victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster who are now too old to remain at a Belarusian orphanage was launched in Co Clare yesterday.
Burren Chernobyl Project member Mr Kevin O'Sullivan and 20 other tradesmen are to travel to Belarus this summer.
They will help renovate the Tarasiki institution for disabled adults.
Many of the young adults at Tarasiki were formerly residents at Cherven orphanage where 200 children are cared for in conditions that in recent times have improved due to a humanitarian aid programme run by the Burren Chernobyl Project.
At the launch, Mr O'Sullivan said "there is a moral imperative on the project to follow through on the commitment made in Cherven".
He added: "The fact is that we brought hope to those youngsters when we first walked through the gates of that orphanage and we can't just abandon them now they're grown and moved on to adult institutions, many of which are in an even worse condition than Cherven was originally.
"It may sound a bit strange to people back home but project volunteers are the only family some of these kids ever had. And now they've left the place they knew all through childhood, they feel even greater loneliness and isolation.
"So we can't just turn round and say, 'Now, you're on your own'."
Mr O'Sullivan is heading a team of 20 volunteers that is scheduled to travel in June to carry out work over a two-week period. It is part of a five-year programme aiming to refurbish Tarasiki and will cost €200,000. Over 20 electricians, plumbers, carpenters and labourers have already signed on and Mr O'Sullivan is confident of maintaining a similar presence at the site throughout the five years of the project.
