The suffering which people find the most difficult to accept is surely that endured by children. That is why the a association VISAGE chose to take action in favour of  these little ones.

What we are doing in Belarus :

• Bringing financial and material aid to children with cancer in the Belarussian State children’s hospital and Center for research in oncology and hematology.
• Bringing financial and material support for the Belarussian orphanages.
• Sponsorship

Belarus is the country most affected by the Tchernobyl disaster. Almost 25% of its territory is contaminated by radioactivity – ie the Moguilev and Gomel regions with a population of 2 million, of which 500 000 are children. When cancer is diagnosed it is devastating for an adult, but when it is a child it is particularly hard to accept. Every country in the world is affected by this terrible disease but in certain countries the circumstances of cancer-sufferers are really unbearable, particularly when resources are so limited, as is the case in Belarus.

In that country, after the Tchernobyl disaster, there was an unprecedented increase in the number of cancer- sufferers. People who contract the disease are almost always so poor that they cannot afford any treatment. If it is a family where the father is absent, the mother has to give up her job in order to look after her child. Very rapidly these single-parent families end up penniless. Government help for a child with cancer is only slightly more than 25 dollars per month. In Belarus that amount. can only buy one pair of children’s shoes and three pairs of tights, but a sick child needs medication, food and clothing. Sometimes in order to treat a child with cancer or  a serious blood illness or an immunity problem, huge amounts of money are required. It is impossible, especially for a single person, to raise such money.

In most cases there is no solution to the money problem for the parents of a sick child.

The situation is even worse when the child has no parents. Today in Belarus 32 889 children are orphans or have been abandonned by their parents, which is, sadly, often the case. Out of ten children brought up in an orphanage, only four have no living parents. Adoption is very rare. Sick or handicapped children are hardly ever adopted. For them, our help is absolutely necessary.

Every one of us can imagine the suffering of a seriously sick child, but that suffering is made even worse when the child has no-one in the world to comfort him. We think these children desperately need our help and our prayers.

Our action is  direct : each year we travel to Minsk to visit the children ; the financial and material help goes straight to the child, or to the person who looks after him.

If each of us contributes a small part of what is necessary, we can do great things ( obtaining the required medication, providing children with clothes and shoes, bringing them pleasure and stimulation through toys and games and helping parents seeking to care for their children.)

If you wish to send a gift to Belarussian child victims of cancer, you can use our bank details, specifying for which child(ren) or which special need you intend it to be used.

Please note that our association doesn’t have a single paid worker : we are all volunteers. The money is entirely for the benefit of the children.

Face to face with illness

Usually the mother or a member of the family stays near the sick child. It is true that the children come from far away for a long period in hospital (several months, even years. Deprived of familiar surroundings, separated from their loved-ones and their friends, hundreds of kilometers away, they fight the illness, going through awful physical trauma. Who could ever replace a mother ? She intimately shares the suffering of her child, she lives through his illness every moment of  each day, and her whole being suffers because of her child’s desperate situation.

When a child from an orphanage is taken in to the Cancer Research Center he has to face many difficulties that his non-orphan room-mates are spared. These problems can slow down the healing process. An orphan child who finds himself for the first time among children who benefit from their mother’s presence, from good food and favourite toys, feels isolated and suffers psychologically.

At the orphanage he was surrounded by abandoned children just like him, each of them with the dream of one day having his own mother to love him…In hospital, the difference between a child with parents and one who has grown up in an orphanage is not very noticeable. However, when on the entire ward there is only one orphan, that child feels especially unhappy due to his terrible loneliness. This is just one of the many problems the child has to face in hospital. Later on, this can make a child more vulnerable to specific medical problems.

THE BELARUSSIAN STATE PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL AND CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN ONCOLOGY AND HEMATOLOGY

the pediatric hospital and center for O and H research belonging to the Belarussian Republic Ministry of Health was opened in October 1997. The Center is the fruit of collaboration between the Belarussian State and the Austrian humanitarian organization “ Hilfswerk ”. On each ward a children’s worker is in charge of organizing the children’s leisure activities. The presence of one of the child’s parents throughout the therapy is a tremendous help. The center has a great reputation not only in Belarus but also abroad. According to one specialist, every child is cared for in this center…

Each year there are 250 new arrivals. At the moment 5000 child victims of cancer are being followed up by the Center. This figure is constantly boosted by increasing numbers of children who live close by the hospital during their convalescence.

http://1childlifesupport.net/

Contact :  Association V.I.S.A.G.E.   FRANCE    tel . 02 23 42 47 86    E-mail: courrier@visage-vie.com