Welcome to our Chernobyl project for 2017

[KnottyAndPistey]

Welcome to our Chernobyl project for 2017!! So glad to have you on board!

For the last three years we have been making warm, comforting Little Hugs for Belarusian teenagers and children visiting the UK for recuperative holidays during the summer with the fabulous charity the Chernobyl Children's Project and Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline. Photos from the Leeds group can be seen here.. and our finished blankets from last year here…

Each year these marvellous charities bring children who live in the most contaminated area near the Chernobyl reactor over to the UK. In summer, when the dust causes radiation levels to rise, it becomes even more important for as many children as possible to leave their contaminated homeland for a few weeks of fresh air and clean food. The rates of childhood cancer are very high, the most common cancers being thyroid and leukemia. Coming to the UK for a four week break increases their immunity against the awful disease by up to 3 years when they return home. Often these children are in remission. Sadly though there is a high chance of these children falling ill again. They all suffer living in such difficult conditions and with very little.

Last year 36 children, teens and their interpreters went home with a beautiful Woolly Hug. This year we are keen to help even more groups, so Liverpool, Gloucester/Leeds (same Leeds group but this year spending 2 weeks at each location) Portsmouth and Helpston,Northampton.

That is about 70+ blankets!!

With your help we know we can do this

Please do join us, here’s how..

Crafting Information

• We would like 12" squares in bright and cheery Stylecraft Special DK colours.
• PLEASE AVOID USING black, bright green, bright pink, browns, greys, citron, sunshine, fiesta, jaffa and any pale pastels, white or cream for practical reasons. This will help squares fit together more easily.
• Make squares in a neutral colour theme, or more specifically for a boy or girl. As much as we don’t like to think of colour as being gender specific, these children may.
• We will be happy to accept 6" squares if making a 12" one feels too much.
• Crochet or knitted, 4mm hook or needles. Single colour, mixed colour, simple, complex. No blocking and please sew in pesky ends.
• If needed, we can supply yarn. Let us know if we can send to you.
• Posting of squares please to the South Coast address, PM if you need it.

If you think you’d like to make a whole blanket that is WONDERFUL, but please contact us first. We will be asking for gender neutral blankets which are 48 inches by 60m, but would just like to chat to you first, thank you!

Supporting with funds
If anyone would like to donate funds to support this, we would be so grateful. Please PM us for the donation info. Thank you xx

Can anyone help with extras?
There are a few extras which we will be collecting too alongside squares, items which really help, if you would like to add in any of these we would love to receive them for the children, thank you, bless you.

Underwear aged 10 plus. New only

• Adult size socks (one size fits all) new
• Toothbrushes, single packed please
• Hairbrushes
• Toiletries, toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo etc, but not bars of soap please.
• Sanitary Towels
• Plasters
• Vitamins, please check suitable for 10 years+
• Any little luxuries that teens might love, eg hair clips, make up bits, stickers etc.

If you would like to add 50p in when you post squares for ice creams that would be so kind, we will split any money we receive between the groups.

Last posting of squares (plus whole blankets) and any extras is Saturday 8th April

No later please as we have to get on and sort at the end of that following week. Thank you. The rush will be on as the first group, Portsmouth arrive in May.

What a big ask! Good grief!

But the fabulous Woolly Hug crew never fail to amaze, last year was an astonishing team effort, as the photo shows, we know that together we can do this.

On behalf of these children and their families, a huge THANK YOU.
Actually, thank you doesn't really come close.

Us xxx

• Photo is the collection from last year that went to the Portsmouth group.

People are asked not to use the Stylecraft bright green, fiesta etc as they are hard to match in the finished blankets.

User - maybe you could pick up your knitting needles? You can fashion some out of this olive branch if you like

The original LEM, thank you very much, I can't knit because I am dyspraxic, however, I am a foster carer, so I am interested in looking in to that side of things.

xx

LEM - I think it may be simply to put a cap on the number of shades in any one blanket, so for aesthetic and unifying reasons?

Fairy lovely bow square. I have the Jan Eaton book too and I like the bobble designs. Can you do rounds of DC or trebles around it to bring it up to 12"?

LEM I was having a picnic with DH and DS last summer at a local (to me) visitor attraction. There were a group of children near us who were wearing t shirts with something like "Chernobyl visit 2016" on. They queued up at the ice cream van after their picnic 🍦

Mhw02 thank you for the links to the ninja knitter. OMG her fingers hardly move. I think I will just have to plod along, even with training I can't see me getting even close to those sort of speeds, it's like watching a speeded up film.

I can't knit but have found the wish list so some goodies will be winging their way to you this week
Thank you to everyone involved this is a great project 😊

😍👍🍦

I work in radiation protection. I too did a at the 75% stat, but there are more important stats to challenge in the world at the moment. As others have said, these kids are in need regardless. So I'll crochet.

Afternoon chums.

Apologies for missing all of this earlier, and I think the last thing any of us want is to have the thread derailed. Every teen I met in Leeds last year was in remission from cancer and living in abject poverty. Being able to give them all a homemade blanket with love in every stitch and some toiletries was wonderful, they were utterly thrilled. No statistic is needed to prove what an important project this is. Join us if you like we'd love to have you on board.

Would have liked to see the deleted messages, and a whole thread! But hey ho. The figure of 75% came directly from CCP HQ, not something we randomly picked out of the air, figures from them and has used in good faith here. Mhw you are right, it was on their website too, but I can't see it there either now. We are contacting them about it, because the last thing we want is to look "really really dodgy"

Going to spend this afternoon on squares for a child, seems perfect, and I have

I'm working on Chernobyl squares while watching the rugby.
I didn't see the deleted messages either.
I think there is some confusion regarding the percentage given. I presume tho that we can take it that there is a very high proportion of serious childhood illness, and considerable poverty.
The exact percentage doesn't matter to me.

OK. I've read through the most recent posts and thought, as I'm the one who asked originally for the blankets for the CCP children three years ago, I'd come and answer any questions that have been raised.

I'm Nicola, and I have run the Leeds Chernobyl Children's Project for ten years until I resigned/retired earlier in 2016 - after the children left for the summer. The charity is still going, it has been taken over by other folk in the group, and we are again bringing 12 children in remission from cancer to Leeds in July and August this year. 8 girls, 4 boys.

I went to BElarus in 2012. I met the children in their homes, saw their cool, went to the edge of the exclusion zone and saw the geiger counter there. The 75% fact was given to me by head office before I did a radio appeal looking for families to host the children a few years ago.

Here's a link that explains the rates of childhood thyroid cancer have increased tenfold since the disaster - that means if 20 children a year were diagnosed BEFORE it, then 200 a year were diagnosed afterwards.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17891238

Now, I have over 1000 photo from my time there, and to be honest it broke me completely. I'll add what pictures I can onto here but obviously I am restricted to the number. However if any of yuo still disbelieve the good we do then PM me and ask to be added to my facebook, where the i turns are readily available to see.

4 weeks in the UK, drinking clean water, eating clean food and breathing clean air increases their immunity by up to 3 years when they go home. It removes over 95% of the caesium from their bloodstream.

I have doctors and consultants who work with the Leeds group, one who is the Head of Communicable diseases in the UK and knows FAR more than any of us the benefits of the holiday here. We aren't the only country who participate either - Italy, France, Germany, USA to name a few. But every year the numbers we can bring get smaller and smaller.

Yes the immediate area was evacuated. Howewe, we have radiation fallout on the mountains in wales because of it - how far do you think they can move away from it? Add to this the fact that the government refuses to acknowledge any effect of the disaster on the people, and the incredibly low wages - (a farmer is paid more than a doctor, and the max wages are $150 USD a month - could you emigrate on that???) and you'll see what they are facing.

It may be an Eastern European country, but believe me it is still governed and run by Russia in all but name. The Belarusian people only have free rights of travel between Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. We can only go there as charity workers under a humanitarian aid visa and by invitation. I've had issues since with that visa in my passport, and I'm glad it has now expired for a new passport.

I can't remember the rest of the accusations we have had on this thread, but if any of you want to take it out on someone, take it out on me. The utterly amazing WH folk fo NOT deserve this. I have never, ever asked them for money - we have always fundraised every penny we needed and got companies to pay for days out, we also raise the money for the flights, visas and travel costs. And no, I have NEVER been paid a single penny for the work I have done for them. None of us have.

The photos are of a house one of the girls who came here lived in, the well they get water from, and the outside toilet. They grow their own food too, in the contaminated ground. Because, you know,thats all they can afford t do.

Don't get me started on the baby home and the homes where they put the disabled children and adults. Just don't.

Here i a link to our head office page explaining the increases in childhood cancer since the disaster - a 50% increase in Leukaemia. 1/3 of all children will get thyroid cancer. This is not to mention the increases in diabetes and other cancers - I've had kiddies here who had OVARIAN cancer at the age of 2 - brain cancer - cancer of every organ you can imagine that ought to be unheard of in this day and age.

All the increases added together across all children i think actually brings it to more than 75%. Let's just be glad we were born here, huh?

www.chernobyl-children.org.uk/information/the-chernobyl-disaster/the-effects-of-the-accident-on-human-health

I really don't think that this is the point of this project or this thread. But... I think it's important to understand the difference between saying that 1/3 of kids have thyroid cancer (not true) and that 1/3 of those who were under 4 at the time of the accident will develop ca thyroid in their lifetime.

(The lifetime incidence of all cancers in the UK is about 1 in 3, and we know there is a statistical link between radioactive iodine, particularly I131, and ca thyroid).

I think there is truth behind all these figures - there is no doubt that cancer incidence has risen, the question is by how much, which is really hard to answer. There are also massive social problems, some of which are a result of the accident.

ilove you say every year the number of children you can bring over gets smaller and smaller - why is that? Is it an issue with Belarus or an issue with the UK not granting the visas or a fundraising issue or something else?

There are many reasons why we have brought less children - some groups manage to raise funds but don't have the families. Others can ger families but not raise enough for flights. The UK have started to charge us for visas (the ONLY country to do so) meaning we have to raise around an extra £100 per child - doesn't sound like much does it? But it is.

It is a massive commitment to host these children - you don't just appear for a fortnight of fun then bugger off again.

Spindelina yes there is a difference between "do" get and "will" get. However that link doesn't mention ALL the cancers these children get, along with the socio-economic issues that are there too - the government telling the people it would ward off the effects of the radiation by drinking vodka, meanin a massive increase in alcoholism and people dying from that, babies born with FAS, TB is a big issue there too, along with many other things.

Believe it or don't. But none of this is the issue of Woolly Hugs. They took information from the website three years ago and have pasted it each year since. Everything they do is for the good of others. I've had years of being told I only run the charity for my own benefit (ha!) and to get a "free" holiday for my kids. Believe me, I put in around 20 hours work a week for free, 10 months of the year, a month at 4hours a week then a month working 24/7 while the children were here. My kids didn't see me, never mind get a free holiday.

I've no issue with anyone asking me questions, but leave Knotty and Pistey alone. They don't deserve the stuff that has been said to and about them.

Ilove I am absolutely not having a go at you. Not at all. What you do with these kids is amazing, and is why I've got a crochet hook in my hand. I'm just trying to explain how some of the confusion and fighting over the stats comes about. There are statisticians and epidemiologists trying to tease apart and quantify what is caused by radiation, poverty, exclusion, the interplay of all these. But none of that changes the fact that these kids are in need and that you are helping to alleviate that need.

The people who are trying to rip it apart have not been there, nor have they worked with it for ten years, nor have they seen it in action.

The kids arrive ill, grey, tired, pasty, no energy or appetite. The leave bouncing, bigger, taller, with dental work done and glasses if they need them, with an insatiable appetite that is difficult to keep up with. One weekend they ate 250. Apples. In three days. Between 12 of them.

People are not trying to rip the project apart, merely questioning a statistic that is probably incorrect.

Your first post seems to suggest that 75% of children in Belarus have cancer.

I would believe that there has been a 75% increase in cancer rate. It could also be true that 75% of the children helped by the project have cancer. Neither of these statements are the same as '75% of children in Belarus have developed cancer'.

No-one would argue that the Chernobyl Children's project and similar organisations are not very worthy causes. But if you quote statistics, you need to be able to back them up with evidence should they be questioned.

And if you can't, there is nothing wrong with saying something such as 'we are helping the children affected by the Chernobyl disaster, who have suffered cancer or other illnesses due to effect of radiation exposure and are affected by other social problems in their country' without referring to any confusing or untrue statistics.

They may not be "trying to rip the project apart" but it's a nasty thing to do on a thread that is about helping sick children.

I don't think the other thread should have been deleted for being a TAAT but I don't think think the doubters should be posting here because it is coming across as ripping the project apart.

The statistics are largely irrelevant.

The statistics are largely irrelevant.

Agreed.

Ilove please come back to the thread.

I'd like to know more. How many babies are in the baby home? Did any of the toys made for the Christmas Hugs project go there?
Can we help them too?

Peace and love, people.

Cracking on with woolly wool; anyone need any? My balls are spreading 😊

There are around 250 babies in the baby home. All babies born with Downs Syndrome get sent there. As well as babies with a disability, or with FAS. Or orphans. Or if their Mum is ill. I couldn't cope very well in there, it totally broke me. Quietest place I have ever been...

I'm busy knitting today. In a separate room from dh because my needles clicking are disturbing his rugby viewing 😄