Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund's new name reflects long-term mission (09/25/05)

Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund's new name reflects long-term mission

SHORT HILLS, N.J. - The Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund has officially changed its name to the Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund following the recommendations of its board of directors and based on strategic planning discussions that began last fall during the fund's 15th anniversary convention. A press release announcing the name change was issued on September 18.

"The inclusion of the word 'development' may be self-explanatory to many of our supporters who have been following our programs in recent years," said Executive Director Alexander Kuzma. "Our board wanted our name to better reflect the true nature of our mission. For many years now, we have been providing less in the way of emergency 'relief' and much more in the form of state-of-the-art technology, training and instruments that can help Ukrainian hospitals improve their infrastructure. Our long-term objective is to enable our partners to achieve sustainable development and to radically improve the quality of care in their institutions."

Established in the fall of 1989, CCRDF rapidly became the leading medical aid provider to Ukraine. Under the leadership of Dr. Zenon Matkiwsky and Nadia Matkiwsky, the fund has established hospital partnerships with children's medical centers in more than 15 cities, including Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, Lutsk, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi.

In the early years, the fund delivered massive amounts of aid aboard large Soviet-built aircraft including the Antonov-225 Mriya, the largest airplane in the world. Since 1992 it has relied on the U.S. State Department to provide planes and fuel to carry out its relief missions. The fund has launched 31 airlifts and 15 sea shipments, delivering more than 1,300 tons valued at $53 million.

"Even nearly 20 years after the Chornobyl disaster, our partner hospitals are still providing treatment for large numbers of children stricken with leukemia, birth defects, cancer and immune deficiencies," said CCRDF co-founder Dr. Matkiwsky. "In addition to children's hospitals, we have begun to focus more of our activities on maternity centers and perinatal centers to help improve prenatal care, and to reduce the large number of pregnancy complications and birth defects that have appeared in recent years."

The fund has established model neonatal intensive care units that have helped to dramatically improve infant survival rates in several of its partner hospitals. Its pediatric oncology programs are now helping doctors in Kharkiv, Rivne and Zhytomyr to combat rare forms of cancer.

"We have by no means abandoned our core mission: to address the human legacy and to combat the long-term effects of the world's worst environmental disaster," said Mr. Kuzma. "As a new generation of Ukrainians is born with severe birth defects and immune deficiencies, we must now work harder than ever to save the lives of the 'grandchildren of Chornobyl' and to help improve the pregnancy outcomes of many young women who were exposed to radiation in their childhood. But we are now integrating that mission into a strategy of long-term, sustainable development."

As an example of this strategy, CCRDF cited the success of its hospitals in Lutsk, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk. In Lutsk, technology and training provided by CCRDF helped to save the lives of premature infants, but the hospital and CCRDF have steadily built on these early successes, developing programs in endoscopy, genetic research and laboratory diagnostics to enable doctors in the Volyn Oblast to address a multitude of health problems. The Lutsk physicians are providing emergency services to impoverished villages on the outskirts of Volyn province, and helping to strengthen programs in neighboring provinces. The hospital recently obtained a major grant from the Swiss government that it shared with hospitals in Rivne and Ivano-Frankivsk.

In Odesa and Lviv, CCRDF is working to develop new programs in infant cardiac surgery. Until last year, nearly all cardiac surgeries in Ukraine were performed in Kyiv at the Amosov Institute, but even operating at full capacity, the institute could save only 380 of the 8,000 infants born each year with life-threatening cardiac defects.

"We knew we had to decentralize this surgical monopoly, even though we have immense respect for the Kyiv physicians," said Dr. Matkiwsky. In 2004 the fund organized a national conference on early diagnosis of cardiac anomalies. It provided a heart-lung machine, a cardiac ultrasound and other critical instruments to enable doctors in Lviv and Odesa to perform open heart surgeries.

"We believe that the future of CCRDF is very bright," said board member Leonard Mazur, who recently visited Ukraine to meet with in-country staff and health officials. In recent months, the fund has received grants from major corporations such as UMC Communications, Philip-Morris and Cargill and support from Ukrainian celebrities such as the Eurovision star Ruslana. The Yushchenko administration has also shown strong support for the fund recognizing its many contributions to health care improvements in the country.

"Over the past 15 years, we've been very blessed with talented and creative volunteers and staff who have enabled us to move to the next level," said co-founder Nadia Matkiwsky. "Our commitment is to high-impact, sustainable programs, and our new name more accurately expresses this commitment."

"Ukraine's health crisis remains very severe," said Mr. Kuzma. "Its hospitals and orphanages are in dire need of financial and material support. Thanks to the Orange Revolution Ukrainian business leaders are beginning to understand the importance of charitable giving and community responsibility. But our diaspora also needs to become much more aggressive in providing meaningful, long-term assistance. We cannot be satisfied with token efforts or symbolic gestures. CCRDF has proven that well-planned, intensive efforts can produce measurable results."

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