Galway families join in festive welcome for Chernobyl kids

Three Galway families are hosting children from the Chernobyl region this Christmas.

The children arrived last Thursday week and will be in Galway until January 5 and they have already been taken into the bosom of their various communities so they can experience a Galway Christmas.

Fiona Conneely of Camus in Conamara has been hosting Chernobyl since 2006 and this year with husband Joseph and their four adult children are hosts to Veronika (15) and her sister Yulia (13).

Actually the Conneely ‘children’, four boys and a girl aged from 21 to 25 years have just arrived home from England to spend Christmas at home and to share it with the two Chernobyl children. Both have been with the Conneely family before and it’s Veronika’s second Christmas in Conamara.

On Sunday they went Christmas carolling in Oranmore and hooked up with the Egan McDonagh family who are hosting a young girl also under the same programme, Adi Roche’s Chernobyl Children International (CCI).

“We will bring them to a panto and to the cinema for sure to see Paddington but honestly, they love walking down Shop Street just looking at the lights and they loved the Continental Market on Eyre Square. We are delighted to be sharing out Christmas with them,” said Fiona.

Paula McGurrell, a choreographer and dance teacher in Galway city, says hosting for the CCI has “changed my life.”

Paula, a Dubliner who is living in Knocknacarra, will be bringing her eleven year old Russian girl to spend Christmas with the McGurrells.

“I had always done charity work either with Childline or with the elderly but hadn’t for years until I read an article about hosting children from Chernobyl and a plea for host families and I applied. I can honestly say, it has changed my life. I get more out of it than they do. They have so little at home and they expect so little when they come here. My friends arrived with gifts for her and she didn’t want to accept the second lot saying she already had got some,” says Paula.

Paula doesn’t have children of her own but works with children year round and has no regrets at signing up as a host. “I am learning Russian because it’s too frustrating not knowing what they are saying and obviously the children pick up some English while they stay in Galway. We will go ice-skating and to a panto in Dublin and possibly the cinema. She loves the cinema. We will also try and hook up with the other Chernobyl children in Galway if we can.”

Paula takes two children during the summer, which is for a longer period, up to three weeks, though during that time there are more group activities.

The four children being hosted in Galway are part of a group of 30 in total who arrived at Dublin Airport for the Christmas as part of CCI’s work to bring children from improvished backgrounds and state-run institutions in Belarus to Ireland for wholesome holidays. Many of the children develop bonds with their host families and return again and again.

The summer visits which are longer almost always involve medical check-ups and sometimes treatment for some of the Belarus children.

Voluntary CEO of CCI Adi Roche said: “This is one of the most joyous and heart-warming moments of the year for me. While the needs here at home are great, it is marvellous to see the Irish people reaching out to those beyond our shores and showing love to abandoned and orphaned children who live with huge physical and intellectual disabilities.

“Nothing as magical as this will ever have happened in their lives. This is the true meaning of Christmas – it’s about the giving, not the getting – the giving with open hearts, open arms and open homes.”

CCI has delivered €96.5 million worth of humanitarian and medical aid to impoverished communities and children across Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia since 1986. More than 24,700 children from Belarus – the country most affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster – have come to Ireland with CCI for life-prolonging holidays during the summer and at Christmas time.

■ For more information or to make a donation, log on to www.chernobylinternational.com or call 021-4558774.