People are still living with it, 40 years on, it's still causing devastation in Belarus

On 26th April 1986, reactor number 4 in the Chernobyl Power Plant near Pripyat in Ukraine exploded causing the world's worst nuclear disaster. While dozens of people lost their lives directly following the explosion, thousands more suffered serious health complications in the aftermath.

The radiation caused many babies to be born with defects in the years that followed and the impact of the disaster continues today 40 years on.

Local woman Raisa Carolan, now 33, was born in Belarus seven years after that fateful day. She was born with two different syndromes that led to health complications including a cleft palate and club feet and she has undergone 30 operations in her lifetime including the amputation of her foot when she was 12.

She spent her early years between two orphanages in Minsk, even being placed in a mental asylum as one stage, saying the authorities there didn't seem to know what to do with anyone who was different and it was very much a case of out of sight, out of mind.

As a young child, Raisa was one of many children from Belarussian orphanages to travel to Ireland for rest and recuperation visits through Adi Roche's Chernobyl Children International Charity and it was through these visits that she got to know the Carolan family.

Ann Carolan from Trim was the group leader for the charity in Meath and while Raisa initially stayed with two other families, the little girl from Belarus won a special place in the heart of the Carolans, coming for short rest and recuperation visits and then longer visits for medical treatment before the Carolan family were finally allowed to adopt Raisa just as she turned 10.

She was one of the last children that the Belarussian authorities allowed by adopted before shutting down the adoption board which has never reopened.

Raisa has never been back to Belarus though she hopes to meet her birth family and younger brother some day and the story of her search for information on her birth family and early years in Belarus is subject of a recently released podcast series by BBC Northern Ireland- 'Assume Nothing- the Radiation Holiday".

Raisa is an ambassador with the Chernobyl Children's International Charity founded by Adi Roche in 1991 and ahead of the 40th anniversary of the nuclear disaster, she sat down with the Meath Chronicle sharing memories or her early life in Belarus and later in Trim and also how determined she is that those who are still suffering today as result of what happened 40 years ago, will not be forgotten.

Chernobyl is the Russian spelling of the Ukrainian city and Raisa told how in December 2025 the UN officially adopted the Ukrainian spelling of Chornobyl.

"Our main message for this anniversary is Chornobyl is forever. That is the motto for this year, because it is forever. It is a generational issue. We cannot see it because we are not there but people are still living in it, are still being impacted by it even though it is something that happened 40 years ago, it is still causing devastation in Belarus.

"There are still so many children and people affected by it. Whether it be children who are growing up and developing medical conditions as a result or children still being born now with lots of these defects and medical conditions.

"It is still happening and because maybe society doesn't know how to handle it there, they are still being thrown into orphanages, to institutions. That's why we want to shine a light and show they are not forgotten. They are still victims of the disaster even through they were born so many years after."

Chornobyl itself is in Ukraine near the border with Belarus. Raisa explained that because of the way the winds were blowing the day about 80-90 per cent of the radation got blown onto Belarus which is why it was so impacted.

"There is radiation in the ground, your food, water, everything. You are living in it. Certain parts of Belarus are worse than others. That is why Belarus is a big part of it.

"My family live in the capital, Minsk, in centre of the country. Like a lot of people back then, they were affected by radiation. A lot of people didn't know to what extent. I know both of my parents are still alive. I have a younger brother as well. They are doing well.

"When they had me, it was in the genetics. When I was born, I was born with a lot of medical issues, cleft palate, issues with my legs, two syndromes."

While Raisa doesn't know exactly what happened around the time of her birth and is only starting to get answers from her biological parents now, she said they were led to believe that she wouldn't survive. Like many babies at that time, she was left in the hospital.

"I was born quite premature, just two pounds weight with a lot of these conditions. You are also living in a time where being disabled or having something different with you was not the norm and because it was happening at such a large rate because of the Chornobyl disaster, it just seemed that the government felt out of sight, out of mind and put them into orphanages."

Raisa spent her early years between two orphanages until she was adopted to Ireland.

"When I was about two or three, I taken to Wales by another charity similar to Adi's and had some operations and then I was brought back to Belarus. Then after that is when Adi and Ali Hewson came to visit the orphanage and came across me. There is a picture they have of that moment.

"I don't know how exactly it came to be but there were discussions with mam- she had the Chornobyl group in Meath. Adi mentioned about me and they wanted to bring me over that is how it started. I kept coming back and forth."

Initially it was for rest and recuperation visits and then a bit longer for a couple of months at a time when she was having surgeries. The orphanage would ring looking to get Raisa back and they would cook up excuses to try extend the stay but there were a couple of occasions where the authorities would demand she goes back on the next flight.

When she first came to the Carolans, Raisa had very little English and her cleft palate made it difficult to speak.

"My dad Tom tells the story,of me trying to eat an ice cream and because of cleft palate it was dripping everywhere. They felt really sorry for me. It was going everywhere. I couldn't eat it properly. I couldn't really walk. I was going around on my knees, I was in and out of wheelchair. They saw how much I was struggling to do the daily tasks that we take for granted."

Coming from an institution, Raisa had been left to her own devices most of the time, so being showered with attention and love was something that took a while to get used to.

"Mammy gave me 100 per cent attention, 100 per cent time. She hadd always worked with children having a playschool business and she had the Chornobyl group. She had so much love and passion and everything to put into a child. It was not something I had ever experienced so it took me a long time to get used to it and to open up and get used to the family dynamic and togetherness. In an orphanage you were left to your own devices, I spent most of the time lying in a cot, left in a corner, no interaction at all."

The adoption process was long and frustating and took about two or three years altogether. At one point her biological family came back into the picture.

"I don't remember, but there was a time when they took me out of the orphanage to give it a go. To see if they could make it work as a family, but it didnt work out. Adi came to visit me a couple of months later, at mam's request to see how I was getting on and I was in the corner, a completely different type of child."

At that stage she didn't know they were her parents and thought they were just another family interested in taking her out.

Although their intention was to adopt Raisa, the Carolans did not want to stand in the way of family reunification but it didn't work out. And so Raisa went back to the orphanage and back to her trips to Ireland.

Children from orphanages generally go to boarding schools when they are nine or ten but because Raisa had physical disabilities, she was seen as "different" and was placed in mental asylum in the middle of nowhere hours outside of Minsk.

"This was just before I was to be adopted and Adi and my mam lost contact with where I was and the orphanage wouldn't tell them where I was gone to. Nobody knew where I was gone for those few months, they just knew I was shipped of

"A lot of my memories of hat time was of sitting in corridors watching other people sitting in corridors rocking back and forth, walloping heads off the wall. It got to a point where you start to pick up those habits youself. I started rocking myself, it is also a bit of comfort in that, soothing in that, its a habit that took me years to stop. They got Mary McAleese president at the time involved to try to locate me, nobody knew where I had vanished to, after they found me eventually, came back to the Carolans, had nightmares for months."

In December 2002, Ann and Tom Carolan travelled to Belarus for the court hearing and thankfully the adoption was approved and Raisa began her new life in Ireland.

"It was wonderful and I knew what it meant but even when I came back here, there was still thatconcern that they would demand for me to go back because they had done so so many times. It was hard to be relieved and fully let go. Eventually I got my head around it, and Mam kept reiterating they can't take you back you are an Irish citizen now."

Sadly a few short years into her new life with the Carolans, she lost her mother Ann, following a short illness when Raisa was just 16.

"It was very difficult. For me, it was like I was being abandoned all over again. Me and my mam were like two peas in a pod, you wouldn't see one without the other. She was always there through everything, dropped to to school, picked me up from school, any of my hospital appointments, she was always there. It was a big shock and forced me to grow up a bit."

Raisa has been in and out of hospitals all her life and has had 30 surgeries, the most recent just two years ago. It is something she is used to and says luckily her employers have been accommodating and she is always transpareent and explains she may have hospital appointments and need surgeries from time to time. She studied arts in NUIG and did a masters in criminology and for the past four years has worked with Google as a policy specialist dealing with erports about content on youtube.

Raisa has always been interested in finding out more about her birth family and after her mother died, she wanted to know what family she had left.

She has located her parents and Adi has met them and shown them pictures. Raisa has a younger brother who she is in contact with and although he was born just a year after Raisa, he doesn't have any physical disabilities.

The outbreak of the war in Ukraine has stalled plans to try and organise a meeting but Raisa hopes to meet with them when the war is over.

A total of 26,000 children went through rest and recuperation programme but unfortunately Raisa said Covid put a stop and then the war. Chernobyl Children's International is one of the few organisations that has been allowed to continue their work. The charity has also established 'Homes of Hope', each with a mother and father figure to look after ten children more like a foster system and providing a family dynamic. These homes have helped shut down the equivalent of three orphanages.

As an ambassador for Chernobyl Children's International, Raisa speaks at different events sharing her story to raise awareness about the organisation and also the children that are left behind and advocating for them.

"We want to shine a light and ensure they are not forgotten, even if born several years after. I was born seven years after and I' still living the consequences of it and I could potentially pass it on to another generation if I have a child."

"Yes it is a historical event that happened 40 years ago, but it is still very much front and centre of everyday life in Belarus. People are still affected by it and will be for many years to come."