The Chernobyl Children's Project in Cork is never long out of the news, which is a good thing because this wonderful voluntary organisation deserves all the publicity it can get.
Over the years, I've watched the arrival from the radiation zone in Belarus of the Chernobyl children - sickly, wan and pasty-faced - who were brought here for good food, clean air and hospitality from Irish families.
Each summer, the kids are dispersed throughout the State. They love it. The sense of freedom to move about with their host families and, after too short a period here, the sense of wellbeing they feel. Youngsters who arrived pale and forlorn were now preparing to leave again for their homeland, but this time there was a glow in their cheeks. Health had been restored.
Observing this at the end of each summer in recent years, the tragedy, it seems to me, is that within less than four hours from Shannon Airport the children will be back in the environment that made them ill in the first place. There is stark evidence that they are a doomed generation following the world's worst nuclear disaster and that the gene pool in the entire Belarussian race has been affected.
The young boys and girls who come here every year may be unable to produce children in later years. The consequences are mind-boggling. Despite massive media attention after the disaster, it has fallen to organisations like the Chernobyl Children's Project to continue delivering relief and hope in a stricken and devastated part of the former Soviet Union.
The nuclear explosion occurred in 1986 and, although its repercussions were felt all over Europe, it was the people of Belarus who bore the brunt of the catastrophe. Thyroid cancer in children, many of whom I have met in Cork, has increased by 200 per cent. Up ahead, the statisticians estimate, some 600,000 people may be at risk because of radiation-induced cancer.
Last weekend, 30 Cork people left Shannon for Belarus as part of "Operation Hope X1V". This will be the last convoy of the 20th century to be sent to Chernobyl by the project. By now, the 30 volunteers have joined a team of 60 builders and aid workers who have already travelled to Belarus on a 10-day mission.
The team includes people from Mallow, Mitchelstown, Kinsale, Bandon, Kanturk, Doneraile and Ballincollig who have offered their time and expertise in a gesture of fellowship. The volunteers, representing the ESB, Bus Eireann, the Army, Siucra Eireann and Mallow Urban District Council - among others - will distribute aid and help to renovate a number of orphanages in Belarus. The total value of the aid being delivered is estimated at £250,000.
The Chernobyl Children's Project makes two aid drops to Belarus each year and has been doing so for over a decade. So far, due to an unstinted commitment, love of the project and a volunteer force that refuses to be daunted by the considerable travails involved in getting the aid to where it is most needed, £12.25 million worth of humanitarian and medical assistance has been brought from Ireland to the region.
In the context of what some of our politicians have been up to, this is an exercise in decency that deserves more than a little credit.
Here's how Ms Adi Roche, executive director of the project, has described the latest effort: "The convoy of builders going out today will work round-the-clock shifts for 10 days to radically improve the facilities in the Novinki mental institute, the Volozhin orphanage and the No 3 home for abandoned babies, near Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
"The Volozhin orphanage, in a nuclear hot spot about 80 km north-west of Minsk, has been `adopted' by the Chernobyl Children's Project's Mallow Outreach Group. The Mallow group is sponsoring the work in Volozhin, including the replacement of all showers and toilets in the orphanage.
"Our awareness of the consequences of Chernobyl takes on even greater significance in the light of the recent nuclear accident in Tokaimura, Japan. This accident has acted as a chilling reminder of our vulnerability in the face of nuclear power as we enter the new millennium." People who wish to donate something to the project may do so by lodging whatever they can afford at TSB Bank, Lapps Quay, Cork - a/c number: 36410021; sort code: 99 07 01.