The diplomacy of children

In late 2007 and early 2008 a large group of children and adolescents from Belarus was given hospitality by various families in Sardinia (Italy) as part of “Chernobyl recovery winter programme”, of which 60% organized by the Association “Citizens of the World” in the Province of Cagliari (capital of Sardinia). A troupe from Channel One of state television in Belarus visited the Italian island until 9 January to make a documentary on the event.Helping the recovery of Chernobyl. The project was born in Italy some fifteen years ago and is based on that fact that in periods spent abroad the children lose a good part of the caesium 137 that has accumulated in their blood; this is one of the radioactive isotopes that is most prevalent in the contaminated areas and that weakens the children’s immune systems. The recovery programme, initially established on a family hospital basis in Cuba, has since been transformed into an international movement of hospitality for the children in many countries: Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal, USA, Canada… “but it is in Italy that the project has found its natural home – reports the President of the association Citizens of the World and honorary Consul for the Republic of Belarus in Cagliari, Giuseppe Carboni -: of the 50,000 Belorussian children that benefit from these projects, 30,000 come to Italy. Over the last ten years some 500,000 family-run periods of hospitality for the children of Chernobyl have been provided”. The consul explains that “over twenty years have passed since the disaster at Chernobyl, but residence abroad for the children still remains an emergency: caesium 137, one of the isotopes most present in the areas contaminated by the tragedy of Chernobyl, has a half life of thirty years. It’s difficult to make people understand that the risks still persist, but it’s a fact”. Celebrating Christmas together. Belorussian state television has produced various reports on Sardinia: a troupe was sent to the island to cover the hospitality offered to children from Chernobyl. It visited the families, and participated in the Orthodox Christmas mass on 6-7 January in the church of Sant’Eulalia at Cagliari, placed at the disposal of the visitors by parish priest, Father Mario Cugusi: “Holy Christmas for us is always a very great feast day with so many significances – says Father Nikolaj Bolokhovsij , of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Minsk (Belarus)-: to celebrate it is of great importance. Today there are so many Slav people far from home, forced to emigrate in search of work or like our children who find themselves in a distant land due to the tragedy of Chernobyl in 1986, when a third of our country was contaminated by radioactive fallout following the explosion of the nuclear reactor. So, at Christmas, it’s very important to be together, because it also brings a sense of family. The children are being given hospitality in various regions; what they feel most is their common Christian faith. There’s real exchange: it’s the diplomacy of children, of friendship without frontiers. A wish to know others. The Christmas celebrations in the church of Sant’Eulalia were attended by emigrants from Slav countries, Belorussian children and families from Cagliari: “There was – says Father Sergij Borskij , of the eparchy of Korsun (Russia) – a great display of hospitality on the part of the civil and religious authorities, such as that of Father Mario Cugusi who placed his church at our disposal, and also on the part of ordinary people, such as the families who take the children from Belarus into their homes with great kindness and generosity, showing a desire for exchange, a wish to get to know distant realities, such as those of the Slav peoples. It’s the same hospitality that I have always experienced wherever I have performed my pastoral service: I have never had difficulties with Catholic priests and I see that the problems, the differences, which can and must be discussed, don’t have any effect on our being priests in the midst of a host community”. The story of Sasha. For Stefania Brignardello and Corrado Aime , parents of five children, Sasha, a 13-year-old boy from Belarus, is their sixth child, who every now and again absents himself: “we pretend – says Stefania – that he’s absent only for a short time; his room, his drawers, his toys are kept for him. Sasha came to us for the first time in December 2001 when my youngest child was only ten months old and he was only seven”. Sasha goes to Sardinia twice each year, for an overall period of three months, two in the summer and one at Christmas, in conformity with the maximum period provided by Italian legislation. “Sasha was born several years after the explosion at Chernobyl, but his parents died as a result of that tragedy. An aunt helped to look after the boy, but often he’s left alone. He does not like to open himself completely, he has his dignity; but now that’s he has grown up he is beginning to tell me about his childhood, which was not of course like that of our children. And he really does call us mum and dad”.