This article is from page 9 of the 2011-10-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
A FUNDRAISING concert to support four local women who will volunteer at a children’s orphanage in Belarus will take place in Ennis on Friday.
Hazel O’Connor, Karen Dunne, Breda Browne and Bridget Punch will spend a week providing support and assistance at the Gorodische orphanage, which is located two hours from the capital, Minsk.
The group are travelling to Belarus as part of the Burren Chernobyl Project, a north Clare-based group that provides support to victims of the Chernobyl disaster.
The group have organised a number of fundraisers over the past couple of months, the latest of which takes place at All Bar One, Ennis, on Friday night at 9.30pm.
For Ennis woman Hazel, this is her third trip to Belarus. She explained that money raised would go towards helping kids at the orphanage.
She said, “We will be spending a week there, helping out as much as we can. I haven’t been there since 2008. The conditions aren’t so great but because the Burren Chernobyl Project are so involved, they have improved.”
Hazel, who works at Lifford Child- care Créche, added, “The one thing they really need out there are nappies. They don’t have them and, without nappies, the children can’t really learn to walk properly. The Pampers are really important. And having the extra staff is really important as well. They need extra staff to help give the children one-on-one attention and support.”
The group are hoping for good support on Friday night. Gorodishche is home to 220 children and young adults who are aged between four and 25. Gorodishche is a remote village a little over a two-hour drive south west of Minsk. Since the project’s first visit in the late ‘90s, the place has been transformed. A new building which was 13 years under construction has finally been finished and most of the groups have moved in there. The Burren Chernobyl Project has three programmes running annually in Gorodishche.
The Burren Chernobyl Project (BCP) was established in 1993 to help with the child victims of the fallout from the Chernobyl reactor explosion. Many projects have been carried out to assist the children and their families who are enduring the effects of exposure to radiation and the other social and economic problems facing them in Belarus.