Activities of Chernobyl Children's Fund, JapanMUKAI Yukiko
Chernobyl Children's Fund, Japan
Shirogane-cho 29, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0816 Japan: http://www.smn.co.jp/cherno/
Chernobyl Children's Fund, Japan (CCFJ) was established in1991 by HIROKAWA, Ryuichi, a photojournalist, senioradvisor of CCFJ at present. Since its establishment CCFJ has
been actively supporting people of the stricken areas: donating
medicines and medical equipments, supporting theadministration of sanatoriums and local relief organizations,giving financial aid for children's recuperation and themedical care of children having had thyroid gland operations.
In 2006, twenty years after the accident, CCFJ has carried onsome projects. We would like to impart information about
these efforts, while referring, simultaneously, to activities of
CCFJ in the past and future.
 Chernobyl Photo Exhibition in Belarus
As part of the 20-year campaign we organized and held aphoto exhibition in Belarus in 2006. Chernobyl is becoming amere disastrous past even in Belarus as well as in Japan. Or
top government officials expect that the Chernobyl disaster
Mother and child in the contaminatedarea. Photo by Hirokawa.
should be over completely. How far can people in Belarus
know about the accident when they are not given enoughinformation? It is quite dubious. Hirokawa as a photojournalist had an ambition to make known thereality of Chernobyl by exhibiting his photos to doctors, specialists and all people concerned withhospitals.
In April 2006, we exhibited the photos at the venue of the International Conferences held in Minsk andGomel. Having made an official proposal to theconference office for the exhibition, our negotiation
with the office began around June 2005. After
number of twists and turns, it was realized thanks tomuch help of the volunteers. The exhibition washeld for five days in Minsk and two days in Gomel.
Many people came to see it during the period:
participants of the conference from and out ofBelarus, members of citizen's organizations fromvarious countries as well as ordinary citizens. It was
especially impressive to see school students, led bytheir teachers, watching the photos so eagerly.
People of Belarus were moved, above all, by the Volunteer students at the photo exhibition in Minsk.
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fact it is all Japanese who took such touching photos and managed the exhibition.
 Fund-Raising Activities in Japan
Chernobyl Aid Calendar
Since 1996 CCFJ has been making aid calendars. This project of Hirokawa's photo calendar was intended
to make known the state of the stricken areas, and at the same time to raise the fund from its profit. The
2006 calendar was entitled '20- years old stigma of Chernobyl'. We carefully selected photos which
Hirokawa took during his visits to the stricken areas for over many years and the calendar received a highreputation.
Aid Concerts
All the events we organize are entitled with the word 'aid' on top, because they are not mere events but
always assigned to be fund raising campaigns. Every year on/around 26 April we organize aid concerts.
This year we planned the concerts of Ukrainian singers Natasha and her sister Katya. We managed to holdnine concerts all over the country with the help of citizen's organizations. Many audience came to theperformances of Natasha and Katya with the collaboration of a bayan player, enjoyed Ukrainiantraditional music and had chances to think about Chernobyl and relief activities.
In 1996, to mark the 10th anniversary of the accident, we invited 'Chervona Kalina', a children's traditionalmusic group, from Ukraine. They performed in various places in Japan. Natasha was a member of thisgroup then. This music group was born from a music teacher's proposal in Pripyat, now a ruined city,
who appealed to the children of evacuated families to form a music group, hoping the children would
recover their health and hopes and expectations through their music activities. The group is still active,and children are practicing to sing and dance. In April 2006 they performed a stage in Kiev, together withprevious members of the group who are already grown ups.
As for the 20th anniversary campaign, we also organized a summer concert. It was another fund raisingconcert with collaboration of Belarussian ballet and Ukrainian songs joined with a Japanese citizen's choir.
All our activities are greatly supported by volunteers. Without their dedicated participation, we have notbeen able to continue to hold aid concerts for these years. They ask shops around the concert halls to put

Rehearsal of Chervona Kalina. Photo by Hirokawa.

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on posters, distributing leaflets to make known the concerts and so on.
Money collected through concerts is all used for children of stricken areas, for the purchase of medicines
and the payment for recuperation.
CCFJ News “Chernobyl Children”
We issue a quarterly newsletter, a circulation of about three thousand, giving financial reports to donors.
The reports mention the state of donation, the uses of the money, conditions and states of children ofstricken areas, events etc. All the operations for issuing newsletter: editing, printing, posting, are done byvolunteers and the staffs of CCFJ office.
CCFJ news from 1997 can be also read in our homepage [http://www.co.jp/cherno/index.html]
Chernobyl Photo Exhibition and Children's Art Exhibition'Photo exhibitions' and 'art exhibitions' play the biggest role in our publicity activity. The photos selectedfor the exhibition were taken by Hirokawa during hisvisits to stricken areas that count nearly fifty times. Asister organization, Supporting Group of HIROKAWA,Ryuichi Nonnuclear Peace Photo Exhibition possesses
and manages about one hundred pieces of exhibition
photos and pictures each.
In 1996, ten years after the accident, an Ukrainianorganization appealed to children over the country forpictures about the Chernobyl accident. A selection of
those children's pictures was sent to CCFJ as a gift.
Another selection of children's pictures was sent from a
Belarussian organization, too. We have chosen fromthese selections one hundred pictures to lend out forexhibitions. Later they were gathered into a book ofchildren's pictures and poems 'Ikiteitai’('We want to live!'1998, Edited by CCFJ, issued by Shogakukan) which has
been read by many people.
Hurt by the atom from Chernobyl.

These photos and pictures have been exhibited at various
By Orga Sokolovskaya, 14yr.
places such as CCFJ organized charity concert halls,
citizen's organizations, city halls, schools, kindergartens, churches and temples.

 Relief Activities in Stricken Areas
In the beginning of its foundation CCFJ tried to do any support as much as possible. Eventually it turnedto focus on the aid for children having had thyroid gland operations. Those children having had their
thyroid removed by operation would no longer be able to produce thyroid hormone; consequently, they
have to take hormone drugs throughout their lives. They also have to take vitamins and calcium tablets atthe same time. Moreover, the children are facing the risk of breaking out of some other disease or
spreading cancer to other organs. Some children must have many operations, and even more, many years
after operations they might have to suffer from various symptoms: headache, heartache, exhaustion, etc.
Therefore, it is necessary to support these children by providing them with medicines and occasions for- 235 -recuperation.
Support for the Children Having Had Thyroid Gland Operations and Support for Young Families< Special recuperation >CCFJ staffs with several volunteers have been visiting the stricken areas in summer to join the special
summer recuperation at the sanatorium 'South'(Yuzhanka) in Ukraine and the sanatorium 'Hope21'(Nadezda XXI vek) in Belarus. This special summer recuperation, having been held since 1996, isplanned for the children having had thyroid operations, and CCFJ bears the total recuperation charge.
However, as the situation has been changing, we now also accept elder age groups and children gone
through other operations than thyroid. About fifty to eighty children in Ukraine and about seventy to one
hundred fifty children in Belarus each year joined the recuperation.
< Foster parents system >Originally it was the system to support the children gone through thyroid gland operations by sending fifty
dollars per month to each child for the period of at least two years. This system, too, has been changed
from supporting only 'the children having had thyroid operations' to 'the children of families in need andvictims of Chernobyl'. A hundred children at present are supported by this system and two hundred
children in total have had this aid.
< Scholarship system >This system of scholarship is addressed tothe children having had thyroid operations.
We send fifty dollars per month to each
student, the same amount as foster children
aid, to support until their graduation fromcolleges. Presently fifty students arereceiving the scholarship and eighty
students in total have been granted with thisscholarship.
< Support for young families >We have been supporting children who had
thyroid gland operations mainly throughabove-mentioned three systems. Most
children we have been supporting have now
grown up and it is a time we should evenconsider the renaming of our organization.
We have been discussing the matter thesefew years. Considering the present situation
we have come to a conclusion that weshould continue to support those grownups’
children having had thyroid operations who
are now facing such problems as marriage
and birth. We think continuous support isimportant for them. If one of the parents
has thyroid disease and their baby has

Sanatorium “Hope 21” in Belarus

Sanatorium “South” in Ukraine- 236 -

health problems, it is impossible for them to work fully as a healthy person even though they need money
for medical treatments. CCFJ thus decided to support actively such young families with babies. At
present we send fifty dollars per month to twenty four families.
In 2006, a couple who both had thyroid operations, experienced recuperations and received medicineswith support of CCFJ have got married. It is happy news and we would like to watch over them fondly.
Supporting Local Relief Organizations and Management of Sanatoriums
We have been supporting the running expenses of the Sanatorium 'Hope 21' which has a function ofschool as well. It was built by Belarusian government in cooperation with a German citizen's organization.
CCFJ has been collaborating to support the sanatorium from the beginning of its foundation. At first we
mainly donated equipments needed for the sanatorium. Now we 100% support the special recuperation
expenses and part of the rotational recuperation expenses of children who join in school class units fromcontaminated areas.
The amount of the backup money from Belarusian government and the donation from Germany are
gradually decreasing. However, this is the best place for children for recuperation where they can also
study and have safe food. Moreover, it is a beautiful place surrounded by forests and a lake and it canaccommodate three hundred children at the same time.
In Ukraine we support the sanatorium 'South' located by the coast of the Black Sea. The sanatorium ismanaged by a support group in Kiev, 'the Help for Families of Chernobyl', and run only during summer.
From the end of June to the end of August fifty children at a time recuperate in rotation. With cooperationof the local support group and hospitals CCFJ choose the children, attend the recuperation with them andproceed to send doctors to the sanatorium. The special recuperation for the children who had thyroid
operations is also held there.
Since the summer 1996 we have been organizing a 'Japanese Week' at 'Hope 21'in Belarus and at 'South'in Ukraine during the special recuperation. Japanese volunteers join to carry out this special week. In 1998
eighteen volunteers flew from Japan to introduce Japanese culture and had enjoyable time with children.
CCFJ is helping the activities of local relief groups. We support the salary of the staffs, the office rents
and communication expenses. We have sent them office equipments such as fax and personal computers.
Through the groups we also send medicines to the children having had thyroid operations.
 Relief Activity in the Future
CCFJ have been supporting various local relief groups, some with big budget and others with small. We
are also supporting some groups which were found during Hirokawa's visits to stricken areas to be in needof emergent help. Many relief groups and hospitals are receiving our help. All our supporting activities arealways arranged through the local groups including personal support to foster children.
Unfortunately the amount of the donation has been on decline since 2001. Twenty years have passed fromthe Chernobyl accident. There are many people in the world suffering from wars, floods, earthquakes,
tsunamis and other natural disasters. We must give priority to people who need the most urgent help. We
will not forget to turn our eyes to the world and, at the same time, we will never turn our back to thevictims of Chernobyl. We are going to continue our best efforts to support them.
(Translated into English by HASEGAWA Kaoru)- 237 -