Helping Ukraine's Children

When I say ‘Ukraine’ what words come to mind? For me they include ‘horror’, ‘sadness’, ‘indignation’, ‘threat’ and ‘worry.’ And, after nearly three years, I’m afraid to admit to a kind of weariness at what appears to be a frozen conflict which may be about to become a kind of geo-political Punch and Judy show. However, perhaps we can all agree about one thing: that this war must be truly frightening and distressing for all those innocent children caught up in it. 

So, with the help of Super Trooper Joan Packard, we have decided to launch a Christmas Appeal on behalf of a charity which used to be called The Chernobyl Children Lifeline, but which changed its name to The Helping Hand for Ukraine after the invasion by Russia in 2022.

Joan (76) who lives in St Ives in Cornwall, has been involved in the charity since 1996. She is leaving the UK on Sunday, December 8th to travel to Lublin in Poland for one week in order to give 42 Ukrainian children some much needed respite and some Christmassy fun. 

 This is Joan’s story of her involvement since 1996 and why this charity is such a deserving recipient of our support. 

“In 1996 my children had flown the nest and I was at home one afternoon listening to Debbie Thrower on Radio 2. The programme was about the work of a charity called The Chernobyl Children life Line which had been set up after the 1986 nuclear disaster to bring children affected by the radiation to the UK for a respite month. Allowing them to eat “clean” food, enjoy fresh air, and have a relaxing month in a loving environment  The children were housed in pairs with families all over the country. This really appealed to me as a retired nurse, so I called the number at the end of the programme and joined the charity. 

At the time my late husband John and I were running a country store in St Ives and all the ladies who worked for us came on board and got involved. We started fundraising, went through security checks and just six months later in 1997, our first group of twelve Belarusian children arrived. From then we continued to host children until the pandemic stopped our work in 2020. During that time, the charity brought 50,000 children to the UK, 300 hundred of whom came to my branch in St Ives, and John and I personally hosted thirty of them in our home.  

The first groups of children were very naïve and young for their age, pale, undernourished and all of them had damaged immune systems. Many had thyroid problems, mitral valve issues, scoliosis, and digestive problems. They couldn’t believe there were goods on display in our shop windows because they were used to empty shops. They were overwhelmed by the choice of food we had in our supermarkets and that we had toilet paper and indoor plumbing. Many came from villages where life was, and still is, extremely primitive. Over the years we saw a gradual improvement in the economic situation of the children but health issues were still a major problem. 

I can remember all the children who came into our lives. My husband used to say they were like little ghosts in our home. I loved the naughty, mischievous boys, and indeed our very first boy, Sergei, returned to visit me in St Ives a year ago with his wife and new baby. He walked into the hall and announced “I am home!”. He then proceeded to recount the favourite meals he had enjoyed with us, reminisced about his first sighting of the sea and learning to play Monopoly (not easy to teach in a foreign language which at that time I hardly knew). I had the great pleasure of attending his wedding in Belarus and also that of his big brother. 

After a wonderful month with the children, I would wave the group off at Gatwick, trying hard to hold back tears, whilst knowing that some were returning to very difficult circumstances. One delightful little eight year old girl I hosted, Sasha, tragically had an alcoholic mother and when she was met at the airport, was told her father had died the previous day in a tragic road accident. We arranged for all of the children to have dental treatment, and sent them home with a year’s supply of vitamins for the entire family. After their month here, all the children looked well with rosy cheeks and shining hair because their bodies had been cleared of a year’s worth of the radiation to which they had been constantly subjected.

I have travelled to  Belarus on numerous occasions, visiting children’s cancer hospitals, baby homes, rehabilitation centres and also to catch up with the many children who have been to St Ives. On the surface, Belarus was improving but it is very cosmetic and since the uprising in 2020 it is more repressive than ever. Sadly we had to close our office there due to the political situation and can no longer send funds to Belarusian children. We do however have permission from the treasury to financially support the rebuilding of an old Soviet school which I project manage. The facility will offer respite to mothers with disabled children. Since 2010 we have also worked in Northern Ukraine as well as Belarus, bringing children from around the Chernobyl exclusion zone to the UK for respite visits.  

In February 2022 we started to get worrying messages from children that had been hosted by the charity. One of the first towns to be invaded by Russia was Borodyanka, where many of our families lived. Their homes, schools, medical centres and shops were destroyed and looted while they sheltered in basements underground. An English teacher who had earlier brought a group of children to St Ives later described her experience to me. She had taken shelter for several days, and then “popped her head above the parapet” and managed to make contact with her son, and then literally ran for her life, dodging tanks, until she arrived with nothing but her passport at her son’s flat on the outskirts of the town. He had enough fuel to join the convoy west and got her safely to Lviv and on to the Polish border.

Following the invasion in 2022, the Charity was rebranded as The Helping Hand for Ukraine and continues to work tirelessly to improve the lives of those children affected by the conflict. This includes a welfare centre in northern Ukraine to provide psychologists, teachers and therapists to support children dealing with the daily stress of war. As you can imagine, so much is needed, but the charity has been able to supply technology (i.e. laptops), medical supplies, personal hygiene products, nappies and baby powder, all sourced in Germany and Poland. Livestock has also been provided for displaced families so that they have milk, cheese and eggs.

On Sunday, December 8th, I will be travelling via a flight to Warsaw and then by mini-bus to Lublin in Poland, about 50 Kms from the Ukrainian border with Gill Blundell (another Super Trooper from Cornwall) and other trustees of the charity where we will meet 42 children who will have been brought across the border by local partners for a week of respite and Christmassy fun in a lovely venue hired for the occasion. They will be joined by another forty children together with their mothers who are already refugees in Lublin. 

Gill and I have volunteered to entertain the children in the evenings, organising games as well as some quieter individual activities as appropriate. We have all been fundraising to provide mobile phone chargers and battery power packs for these children. As you can imagine, communication is vital and the ability to take advantage of the intermittent power supply to charge their devices is paramount. Last year as the children crossed the border into Poland all their mobile devices rang giving them an air raid warning which brought home to the volunteers the reality of war and what these children have to deal with every day.  

I’d like to thank Tricia, look Fabulous Forever and all her followers on this blog and on Super Troopers for allowing me to tell you about the work that our charity has done over the years. I was so upset and worried when war broke out, knowing that some delightful people that I had come to love would be personally affected. If you do feel able to make a contribution (however small), I can assure you that it will be put to excellent use to make the challenging lives of these children a little easier.

And on behalf of every child you will help - Дякую - thank you so much!”

 Bon voyage, Joan and Gill and good luck.  We’ll all be thinking of you and following your trip on Super Troopers where you will be posting regular updates and photos to support the appeal.  

I will include a final update with the amount we have raised at the end of the appeal on my year-end blog on Sunday 29th December 2024.

To make a contribution please click here and thank you for your support and generosity.

Tricia x

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