The ‘Two Sashas’ fly in from Chernobyl to thank the people of Ireland for ‘€40,000 dream Christmas gift’

23rd December 2013

The ‘Two Sashas’ join over 50 children who fly into Dublin Airport from the most affected regions for respite care with Irish host families

Every year they come to Ireland for a brief “Christmas break” with host families, but this year a group of special needs children from the Chernobyl region of Belarus are flying to Ireland to say a very special “thank you” for the huge response from Irish people to their emergency fundraising appeal.

Since the story of how their €250,000 Independent Living Home, built by Irish volunteers but destroyed by a freak lightning strike in June, appeared on RTE’s Nationwide programme on 9 December, contributions to help rebuild it have been flowing in to the offices of Chernobyl Children International (CCI). So far €40,000 has been contributed.
Today Thursday, 19 December, Adi Roche, CEO, of Chernobyl Children International welcomed 50 children from the heart of the Chernobyl regions in Belarus to Dublin Airport – among them the ‘Two Sashas’ who were rescued from the burning home and who are now leading an international campaign to raise funds to have it rebuilt.

Although the boys escaped the fire, their few personal belongings were destroyed and their hope and dreams of overcoming their physical and mental disabilities and living independent lives were cruelly dashed.
But according to Adi Roche, “The people of Ireland, without hesitation, took the plight of the boys to their hearts and responded so generously to the appeal to help rebuild their home and give them back their dignity, independence and freedom”.

The ‘Two Sashas’ join children who are drawn from some of the areas worst affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, and have serious physical and intellectual disabilities. Others have had life-changing surgery in Ireland in recent years and will be returning to the same host families from previous Christmas visits.

Dozens of host families from 11 counties in Ireland, in Dublin, Wicklow, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Meath, Mayo, Longford, Kilkenny, Westmeath and Kildare, have been preparing to welcome their young visitors over recent weeks. Many of the host couples have travelled to Belarus as volunteers over the years to work on building and nursing projects and are full of excitement and anticipation in meeting their host children for the first time this year. CCI is an internationally recognised charity with United Nations NGO status and has spent over €95 Million Euro on humanitarian and medical aid programmes in the regions of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia since 1986 and has brought over 23,500 children into Ireland on Rest & Recuperation Programmes.

Adi Roche said: ‘When I see our host families today in Terminal 1 of Dublin Airport, with their eyes lit up, it is a joy to watch and a beauty to behold. These children are our future and we in turn are giving them the most precious gift of all – hope’. The Story of the ‘Two Sashas’ – They thank the people of Ireland who took their plight to their hearts
Some of the special children who have travelled with the children today are Sasha Leukin and Sasha Holdyau, also known as the ‘Two Sashas’, who will be staying with the Meaney family in Bray.

The boys have special needs and are confined to wheelchairs – one is painstakingly working on writing an autobiography; the other hopes one day to become an artist and paints with his mouth and his toes. Adi Roche went on to say. ‘’The Two Sashas’ are our ambassadors. They have come to Ireland to say a personal thank you to the people of Ireland and to all those who came out in force last week to help rebuild their home and give them back their independence and their freedom’.

As the Sashas wait for their house to be rebuilt, they are in temporary accommodation, eagerly waiting for their new home to be completed next year. Already the foundations have been laid, in advance of the harsh winter snow. Work will begin again at the end of February and the moment where the Sashas are handed the keys for their new home, cannot come soon enough for them. The new Independent Living home for the boys will be completed next year, to the delight of the 12 boys who escaped the burning building and lived to tell the tale.

The Two Sasha’s closest friend, Damien Meaney from Bray, has just flown in from Haiti, where he was seconded by the Beacon Hospital to work with the Clinton Foundation. Damien is waiting excitedly to see the Sashas, who will spend Christmas and New Year in a specially adapted apartment built by the Meaney family at the end of their garden in Bray.

For over 12 years, the Meaney family have taken the boys plight to their hearts. Damien’s parents, his sisters and his brothers have spent hundreds of volunteer hours refurbishing an institution called Vesnova, where the ‘Two Sashas’ spent their early lives. Damien will be bringing the boys back to their ‘second home’ in Bray today, where there will be a heroes’ welcome for them.

Adi Roche, said ‘Irish people gave so generously to the ‘Nationwide’ RTE public appeal to rebuild our boys’s terrace home, helping them to move on to live full and independent lives in their own community. Irish generosity knows no bounds. For our boys, the building of their new home back in 2008 was like “a dream come true” but that dream was shattered when a bolt of lightning destroyed the complex in June. Luckily we can now rebuild the boys home and rebuild their lives’.

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Two other children who will spend Christmas in Ireland are Igor Shadzkou who will be staying in Castlebar with the Cox family and Yvgeni Stasevick, who will stay with the Cullen family in Kilkenny. Both of these young boys have suffered huge physical impairment and have spent their short young lives confined to wheelchairs, abandoned to an orphanage as babies. Igor is no stranger to Ireland and has spent the last three Christmas holidays in the company of his adopted family, Marie and her husband Dermot and their four young boys. Igor continues to receive medical care on his visits to Ireland and just two years ago got a specially adapted wheelchair which changed his life. He can now travel outside the orphanage each day, giving him a mobility which he would never have thought possible.

For Rita and Pierce Cullen and their family, Yvgeni is the apple of their eye and they cannot wait to bring him home to Kilkenny for the Christmas period. Yvgeni has cerebral palsy and is dependent on his carers and volunteers to meet all of his physical needs. As this year is Yvgeni’s first Christmas in Ireland and outside of the orphanage, he cannot wait to be part of the Cullen family’s Christmas celebrations.

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