Hope for ‘Chernobyl’s Children’ in Seattle
Jun 26, 2013, 6:09 AM | Updated: 9:56 am
At the Gina Marie Lindsey Arrivals Hall inside Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a family greats the young girl who will stay with them for the summer on a six-week health respite. The program is run through a Renton-based nonprofit called Hope for Chernobyl's Child. (Photo: Brandi Kruse/KIRO Radio)
(Photo: Brandi Kruse/KIRO Radio)
Nine children and three adults arrived in Seattle Tuesday for a six week health respite – a crucial escape from their homes in the Eastern European country of Belarus, where the radioactive environment could take years off their lives.
The group lives in the fallout zone from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, during which radioactive material spread over tens of thousands of square miles. According to Hope for Chernobyl’s Child, a Renton-based nonprofit, those who continue to live in the fallout zone suffer lasting health impacts.
“They continue to live with the remaining radiation that has filtered into the soil and the trees,” said Elizabeth Tennison, vice president of the organization. “Those children – who continue to live in the area because they have no other place to go – are subject to […] having to survive on products grown in an area that is radiated.”
Tennison said six weeks or longer out of the zone can add years to their lives, which is why Hope for Chernobyl’s Child arranges to have families in the Northwest host a child over the summer.
Maksim Adzinochanka, an 11-year-old boy from the town of Dobrush, will stay at a home in Kent’s East Hill neighborhood. He arrived at Sea-Tac Airport Wednesday morning to greet his host mother, 41-year-old Jennifer Henning. Henning has hosted Adzinochanka’s older brother in the past.
Through a translator, Adzinochanka told KIRO Radio he was tired from his trip but looked forward to his first stay in the United States.
All of the children will see a dentist and other health professionals, many of whom provide their services for free, while in the U.S.
“(Maksim) has some medical issues that we’d like to address while he’s here,” Henning said. “(He) specifically has some stomach, or some intestinal issues that we want to address. He also has had some sinus issues in the past and they’ve never been diagnosed.”
Henning said it is difficult to send the children back to the fallout zone at the end of each summer.
“But I have to think of it from a mother’s point of view,” she said. “The child belongs with his mom. The child belongs with his family.”
To learn more about Hope for Chernobyl’s Child, visit their website.
