YEOVIL NEWS: School in a Bag supports the children of Chernobyl

YEOVIL NEWS: School in a Bag supports the children of Chernobyl

THE School in a Bag organisation has chalked up the 37th country around the globe where it has helped children.

The charity – part of the Piers Simon Appeal – has donated a quantity of schoolbags to children living in Belarus which was badly affected by a massive nuclear accident at Chernobyl more than 30 years ago.

The School in a Bag is an initiative that aims to provide support to victims of disasters worldwide, regardless of race, politics or religion. It delivers rucksacks full of stationery and resources to poor, orphan, vulnerable and disaster affected children.

The bags were given to young people while on a visit to England organised by the Sherborne and Yeovil link of the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline.

The Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline is a charity that was set up to bring child victims of the Chernobyl disaster to the UK for a four-week recuperation holiday.

The disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident dating back to April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.

The children were presented with schoolbags by School in a Bag’s Lis Foy at the start of their visit earlier this month.

The Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline was established and registered in 1992 to support children and their families from Belarus and Ukraine forever affected by the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

Belarus, where most of the charity’s work is focused, received more than 70 per cent of the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear explosion and as a result thousands are born every year with, or go on to develop, thyroid cancer, bone cancer and leukaemia.

More information about the Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline can be found on this link -  http://www.ccll.org.uk/ho/ .

More information about School in a Bag can be found on this link - http://www.schoolinabag.org/ .

PHOTO – TOP: Children from Belarus with their schoolbags donated by the School in a Bag team based near Yeovil. Photo courtesy of the Chernobyl Children's Lifeline.

YEOVIL NEWS: School in a Bag supports the children of Chernobyl

PHOTO – ABOVE: School in a Bag chief executive, Luke Simon, puts in a pin in Belarus to signify the latest country to be supported by the SIAB team. Photo courtesy of the School in a Bag initiative.

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