Event helps Chernobyl victims

Local residents will have the chance in the first month of the new year to help alleviate the effects of the world’s biggest nuclear accident — the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl in what is now the Ukraine.

Highland Baptist Church, participating in the American Belarusian Relief Organization, plays host to children from Belarus for six weeks each summer and will hold a 5k run or one mile walk to help raise money for the plane fare to get the children here. Belarus is where much of the fallout from the disaster was located.

Event organizer Dionne Savoy said this is the seventh year the church has participated, and the second year for the walk. She also said there will be other fundraisers.

The walk is from 7:45 to 10 a.m. Jan. 31 in the New Iberia City Park, with participants meeting at the Senior Citizen Building near Marie Street.

The cost is $25 per person to run or walk, and sponsorships are $100. Those who register early will get a free T-shirt, though it’s also possible to register that morning.

To register and pay online, go to www.active.com and type in “Running from Radiation” under the heading “Find things to do” or call Savoy at 523-1521 or Verret at 352-0205.

A 2005 report by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and six other agencies said there has been a slight increase in thyroid cancers in that area following the nuclear disaster, and the main impact to residents of the impacted area is psychological.

Savoy said they see both physical and psychological effects in the children, and two or three children through the years have had cerebral palsy, which can be caused by radiation, say medical sources on several Web sites.

“Sometimes their hair’s falling out, and it improves when they’re here,” she said.

Fellow organizer Josey Verret said, “These people live with the effects of radiation all their lives ...  Just imagine taking a small dose of radiation every day of your life. If you stopped, your body would have a chance to heal itself.”

When the children come, they receive medical care and, just as importantly, breathe fresh air and eat fruit not contaminated by radiation, like the produce where they live.

Verret has hosted a child since the beginning of the program.

The girl who comes to stay with Savoy, who will be there for the sixth year, just got running water in her home.

“They live a different life than we do,” she said.

Last year there were 16 children and two chaperones who benefited from the race funds, Savoy said.