Green Cross Switzerland and Green Cross Belarus (former NTF) cooperate since 1995, Green Cross Russia joined in 1997. The program is based on local needs and the experience made by Green Cross Belarus in the fields of health care and (environmental) education. The projects were:

Therapy-Camps (1995-99):
Since 1995 in Belarus and since 1998 in Russia. Since 1997, children from the Ukraine take part; and in 1998, refugee's children from Afghanistan.

Mother and Child (1998/99):
Mothers and their little children are trained in food cultivation and preparation techniques that lead to minimising the intake of radio-nuclides.

Rechytsa rehabilitation pilot project (1998/99):
In a pilot project, a comprehensive health rehabilitation program was implemented in four communities in the Rechytsa region.

Publications (1998/99):
Population and specialists are informed about the results of the different research and health projects.

Goals and Strategy

Overall programme goal for the period of 2000 to 2001

Additional goal:

• Development of local structures (de-centralisation) and improvement of co-operation with existing local institutions;
• Introduction of all-year prevention and rehabilitation programmes in addition to the seasonal ones (as for example therapy camps).
• Information of population and specialists about prevention measures, improvement of exchange of experiences between Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine;
  
• Improvement of the institutional capacities of the national and local Green Cross partner organisations.
  

Strategies for the programme 2000/2001

The Projects

Institution building

Countries: Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine

Goals of this project:

Children Therapy camps

Countries: Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine

The catastrophe of Chernobyl as well as the massive arms race has led to an increasing number of chronic diseases in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine. In Belarus and the Ukraine children of the Chernobyl Zone will take part, whereas in Russia, there will also be camps with children come from the seven regions with chemical weapons stockpiles.

Aims:

Activities

• Medical observations at the places of residence;
  
• Therapy camps of four weeks in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine (Chernobyl region) with a total of 1'000 participants annually. Camp's programme: diagnostics, therapies, observations and treatment but also education and motivation;
  
• Final medical observations and treatment of the more ill children at their places of residence.
  

Mother and Child Nutrition

Countries: Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine

The population in the contaminated areas will have no choice than to live in a contaminated area and thus in a hostile environment. Especially mothers and their children are exposed to a huge health stress.
Basing on the experiences made in the Mother and Child project in the past two years, there will be carried out also training courses in the Ukraine and in Russia (2001). The project shall be expanded and be implemented also in other contaminated areas.

Aims:

Activities

• Medical expeditions to high-contaminated villages, health examination, consultancy and prescriptions for mothers and pre-school children;
• Sanatorium stay for 350 (annually) mothers and their children: Training for mothers in preparation of food with contaminated vegetables and fruits and education in children and upbringing matters; if necessary medical treatment in specialised sanatoriums;
• Initiation of mothers (family) clubs in villages: Training and support of the most active mothers from each village. They shall start a mother-consulting network.
  

Training for the Trainers

Countries: Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine

For building youth structures, it is important that young people get responsibility and necessary knowledge. They need competence in management and the ability to implement concrete action. Training and education raises motivation, and in the same time, the basis of the Green Cross movement will be enlarged.

Aims

• Involvement of young people in the process of social improvement in communities in contaminated areas;
• Involvement of students and post-doctors in development of rehabilitation methods on a scientific base;
• Participants of the three countries should get to know each others and keep contact across borders.

Activities

• Selection and training of youth activists and leaders in workshops and training camps;
• Building of local youth groups.
  

Information and publication

Countries: Belarus, Russia (2001) and the Ukraine (2001)

To gather special information is a very difficult and time-consuming task in the countries of the former Soviet Union. All the knowledge in health care, nutrition and environmental matters of the different Green Cross-organisations shall be offered to the public and other organisations. This includes population, government institutions, specialists, other organisations and of course the Green Cross-organisations themselves.

Aims

• Information of population, state committees and specialists about the results and experiences obtained in the Socmed programme

Activities

• Publishing of education and training books, newspapers or leaflets for people living in con-taminated areas;
• Information of specialists working in contaminated areas;
• Setting up an information network (database, Internet, Intranet) to facilitate information ex-change
  

Between Season Residential Programme

Countries: Belarus, Russia (2001) and Ukraine (2001)

The Chernobyl region and other contaminated areas are more and more threatened by social degradation. Social life is going pretty slow and boring in villages. The process of human exchange between cities and villages is cancelled. High unemployment in cities stopped migration of villagers there. On the other hand no young specialist wishes to go for a job to a village especially in the contaminated areas. This concerns young doctors, school and kindergarten teachers, culture workers and agronomists.

Aim

• Activation of social life in cities and villages

Activities

• Organization of sport, culture, education and games events in villages;
• Initiation of clubs of activists in villages and cities;
• Grant system for local social micro projects;
• Development of a network of distance education of children.
  

Village Health Care

Countries: Belarus

The medical consequences of the large-scale contamination is first seen with children as they have the most sensitive organism. An increased level of various psychosomatic disorders is observed, like dysfunctions of thyroid, pancreas, adrenal glands, and kidneys.
Currently villagers don't pass health control for many years, existing clinics are able only to serve first aid. In fact villagers live without any health. There is another serious problem: the existing old health control system. In fact children, teenagers and adults constitute of three different categories of medical accounting. When children become teenagers and leave their group, all records are left in the children department and only a short record goes to a new de-partment. This means that teenagers start their health state from blank sheet. And nobody controls and serves family health care.
The strategy includes two steps of assistance: health screening with first aid, training and preparation of local clinics for doing health-monitoring job. The health care service approach is based on principles of family medicine.
This is a follow-up project to the Rechitsa rehabilitation project of 1998/1999.

Aims

• Rehabilitation and improvement of health protection of families in contaminated villages.
• Initiation of permanent health monitoring of risk groups and health control of risk categories of villagers.

Activities

• Selection of two villages in the highly contaminated area;
• Health-screening of villagers with serving first aid and doing individual prescriptions;
• Handing-over of the obtained health information to local clinics, training of their staff;
• Finding partners for support of particular risk villages all over the year.

Remo Gubler, June 6, 2000