Why do we need to "Make a Difference"?

When the disastrous nuclear accident took place in Chernobyl in 1986, the radiation affected Belarus more than any other country. There were short term and long term effects - children alive in 1986, children born since then, and now the next generation of children have massive health problems.

With the break-up of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and the emergence of the new state i.e. the Republic of Belarus, the country has suffered tremendous economic hardship and decline. Thus Belarus is one of the poorest countries in Europe, no longer able to get the necessary finances it once enjoyed in the Soviet era.

The twentieth century was a nightmare for the area. After two World Wars, came the horrors of the Stalinist era. Many of the older residents of today suffered hugely during the Second World War and again during the Stalin's reign of terror. Widows who lost their husbands during World War Two and thereafter are very common among those we meet in our work with the elderly.