A home from home

ARRIVING at Edinburgh airport last summer to pick up their new house guest, the Hastings family weren't quite sure what to expect.

"We knew that his name was Vladyk, that he was from a family with four children and that he got car sick," says Laura Hastings, a 41 year old nurse from Edinburgh.

"That was about it. We had a photograph but we didn't recognise him from it. He was very pale and weak. Fortunately, he had a little label round his neck with his name on it.

"The only words he could say in English were 'Scoobydoo' and 'no'."

Vladyk is nine years old, and from a small town in Ukraine. He likes cars, Lego, cartoons and cuddles. He came to Scotland last summer not just for a holiday, but because on 26 April, 1986, at 1:23am, reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant, near the town of Pripyat in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, exploded.

The world's worst nuclear power plant disaster has left its legacy deeply ingrained in the Ukrainian soil. Radiation levels are high, so food grown in the earth is often contaminated, as is the supposedly clean water.

Thyroid problems amongst young children in Ukraine and Belarus, where more than 60 per cent of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout landed, are endemic. Where there was only one new case of thyroid cancer a year, there are now 100. Heart defects are also common. Even now, almost 24 years on, children born in the region have weak immune systems, catch colds and viruses easily, and are believed to be at greater risk of cancers, including childhood leukaemia.

That's where families like the Hastings come in. Father Ewan – the youngest of four rugby-playing brothers including British Lions Gavin and Scott – mum Laura and children Emily, 13, and Gregor, 11, live in Roslin, just outside Edinburgh. They are part of a charity that for almost 20 years has been providing respite for the children of Belarus and Ukraine who have been affected by the radioactive fallout caused by the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl Children's Life Line (CCLL), founded in 1991 in Surrey by retired businessman Victor Mizzi, brings groups of children from Belarus and Ukraine each year to the UK, where they stay with host families who put them up in their own homes for a month at a time.

"Every child in the contaminated areas in Belarus and Ukraine has a need to get out," says Norma Smith, CCLL Edinburgh's chairwoman. "Research suggests it (being away from the country for a month] could give them at least a couple of years' extra life expectancy. Whether that's the case or not, there is no question that being here boosts their immune systems and removes radioactive elements present in their bodies. A month seems to be just about enough to have them here and make a significant improvement to their health."

Over the past 19 years, more than 45,000 children from Belarus and Ukraine have travelled to the UK for month-long breaks as part of the CCLL project. During their time here they will be taken on day trips, fed plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and given the opportunity to make friends with Scottish children their own age.

One of the most rewarding aspects of the project, says Smith, is not so much that barriers break down, but that families on both sides see that the barriers were never there in the first place.

"They get to know that people in other countries are just the same as they are. They're friendly, they're kind, and if you're nice to them they'll be nice to you," she says.

The Hastings family decided to get involved in the Edinburgh branch of CCLL after hearing from a friend about the Borders branch of the project. "It just seemed such an amazing thing to do," says Laura. "With all that we have over here, to be able to do this for four weeks just seemed incredibly worthwhile."

When Vladyk arrived with just his two words of English, a lot of the initial communication was done by pointing and miming. "We heard 'no' quite a lot in those first few weeks," remarks Laura drily.

Despite that language barrier, Vladyk dived headlong into family life. He is an affectionate child, and was soon on friendly terms with the family cat and with 11-year-old Gregor. Within days he was throwing his arms around Gregor and calling him his brother.

He was amazed by everything he did and saw on their days out, and on the organised trips that CCLL arranges for the children while they're in the country, to places such as Blair Drummond Safari Park, North Berwick and Edinburgh Castle.

"He lives in a town with no cinema or swimming pool, so everywhere we took him he was going around saying 'Wow!' Even when we took him to Tesco," says Laura. "It was all a new experience for him. When he first came we tried to take him out cycling, but he was so breathless he couldn't go very far. We were told that within a week he'd be much better and we thought 'how does that work'? But almost to the day his cheeks were pink – I couldn't keep up with him on the bike! It was just amazing."

The bond created between Vladyk and the Hastings family meant that when it was time to say goodbye, all five of them found it hard to let go.

"It was horrible," says Laura. "He was quite upset about going home and we had all enjoyed having him so much it was very difficult to say goodbye. We all got really attached to each other. He became part of the family."

So much so, that the Hastings made the decision to have Vladyk back for Christmas. This is not uncommon with families who get involved in CCLL; they will become attached to a child and host them more than once, sometimes establishing a lifelong bond. The charity will pay for the initial visit, but if a family wishes to host the same child again, they pay for subsequent trips themselves, although CCLL will help arrange travel and visas.

The Christmas trip was such a success – "Vladyk was quite overwhelmed. He got a stocking and presents, it was a lot to take in," says Laura – that he will come back to stay with the Hastings once again this summer, and in return they will visit him and his family in Ukraine in October.

Yet while the Hastings will see Vladyk again, for other children in the affected region looking for a host family in Scotland, there is a problem. The Edinburgh branch of CCLL, which normally takes 12 children, has a deficit of host families for this summer, and is actively looking for those in the Edinburgh area who might be interested in taking a little boy or girl from Ukraine or Belarus into their homes for a month over May and June this year.

"There are so many benefits for a family," says Smith. "You gain knowledge of another child from a different culture, and knowledge that you are improving that child's health. It's so much more personal than the usual charity thing where you stick some money in an envelope. You are seeing these children, you get to know them, and in most cases get to love these children."

Laura says that the experience has brought her family closer together. "I think the biggest change is that it's made my kids more thoughtful about other people. They're more considerate of others than they ever were before, and more appreciative of simple things like clean water and food. It's made our kids open their eyes to how lucky they are."

To find out more about hosting a child as part of CCLL Edinburgh, visit www.ccll.org.uk/edinburgh