MoldovAnn

Since my BBC debut last week, I have received several emails that have sparked some very interesting email conversations. One discussion has been about the so-called “children of Chornobyl” and the multitude of charities in western Europe and the U.S. who provide aid to children living in Chornobly-affected territories. One of the very popular programs some charities offer is a “rehabilitative” trip abroad – kids spend a few weeks or a few months, usually in the summer, living in, for example, the United States with a host family. I’ve heard of children spending summers in Italy, Portugal, France, and Ireland, as well as the U.S.

I have very mixed feelings about these programs. First of all, for how long are people going to continue being labeled “Chornobyl affected”? Twenty-one years after the accident, most of the Ukrainian territory designated as Chornobyl-affected is fine for human habitation, with radiation levels lower than natural background radiation is some parts of the world (northern Finland, for example), or even completely dissipated. What makes a child “Chornobyl affected” today? His zip code? Because his parents listed his permanent address as being in the 4th zone, even though he was born hundreds of kilometers away and grew up in a different region of Ukraine?

I certainly think the chance to spend a summer in another country is a fantastic opportunity for any kid, no matter where they are from. And the more Ukrainians, especially young Ukrainians, who can travel abroad and see examples of life in other countries, the better. At the least, they will see what other people expect and receive from their governments – good roads, clean water, gas lines. Maybe they will learn about how people in those countries actually pay their taxes, and actually receive government services back from them. They can learn that it is not normal to expect to give or receive bribes for every little transaction. They can see that in some countries laws are serious things, followed by your average citizen and enforced by your average police officer. They will also see that most people in those countries work pretty hard, too, and money doesn’t grow on trees there and your average person does not own a Bentley. In other words, exchange opportunities generally break myths about foreign countries, as well as about your own country.

On the other hand, the hundreds of thousands of dollars these organizations spend to bring a few children every year to the US, Italy, France, etc., could make a HUGE difference in the lives of thousands of people living in Chornobyl-affected villages: build or renovate the gas lines so there is gas heat in every home, school, hospital, and other building in the village so they don’t have to burn wood for fuel (which causes a whole set of respiratory and other problems from the smoke); clean wells and build sanitary systems so every household has access to clean water, and with the gas heat, hot water for more sanitary washing; renovate roads, repair decrepit schools, install quality windows for better insulation. Invest in small business development to create jobs. The list could go on and on.

Richard D North, author of the website Chernobyllegacy.com, writing about the so-called “rehabilitative summers abroad”, points out a fatal flaw in most of the humanitarian efforts surrounding the Chornobyl accident, “one of the bad things about it is that the kids have to buy into the ‘horror story’ to get on the ride – or rather, they learn that victim hood is profitable.”

This is certainly the great dilemma for programs like UNDP’s Chornobyl Recovery and Development Programme. They work hard to to destroy the myths, to help people move beyond the victim syndrome and take control of their lives again. The slow, plodding work of economic development, social mobilization, and community development does not produce dramatic results quickly; instead, it takes years of steady support and maybe you’ll see a measurable change in society.

But international donor agencies and charities want to give money and support in response to a tragedy. And if you don’t play up the “tragic lasting effects” of Chornobyl (which may or may not even be real), you don’t get aid. It’s a real conundrum.

I do believe aid organizations want to help people have better lives. But when I hear them talking about “we’re going to support this community because it’s not too far from Kyiv and we can easily visit it in a day during our short visit to Ukraine”, it’s hard for me to take them seriously. If they really want to help the most needy, the most affected, the most at-risk people, then they should go to the far away, isolated, hard-to-get-to places – precisely because no one goes there. And if they want to make a difference in a child’s life, help make her home town better. A “rehabilitative” summer in the Ireland is fantastic and I’m sure lots of fun, but when you send that child back to her village with poor heat, unclean water, and little access to the outside world due to terrible roads (not to mention no computers or internet), have you really made that child healthier? Have you really improved her life?

I wish aid organizations would stop doing what is easy for them to do, and what makes them feel good, and would start doing the hard work that helps disadvantaged people have better lives.