Without a fanfare - Galway charity makes life better for Chernobyl

WHEN the Galway Day Care Centre is officially opened this summer in the town of Mikashevichi in Southern Belarus, it will be done with only the minimum of ceremony, and most of the people present at the opening will be those who will use the new facility, along with their grateful families.In many ways the low-key affair will be reflective of the nature of those responsible for its construction; people who for over a decade have gone about their charitable work in an unassuming and dignified manner, wanting nothing in return for their efforts only the inner satisfaction of having done some good for people who are still very much in need.It is almost 23 years since the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl sent a plume of radiation across the Ukraine border into neighbouring Belarus, and its over ten years since a small group of people got together in East Galway and decided to start doing something for the unfortunate people who had their lives so horribly destroyed by the resultant contamination.A decade later the Sunflowers Chernobyl Appeal cantake a deserved bow, having completed a total of 15 building projects which have benefitted an estimated 5,000 people, and in the process raised around €2 million towards their completion.And in...