In the past 50 years East Ukraine suffered from various catastrophes. Firstly, in the Soviet era the region was largely used by the industry and as a result is heavily polluted. Above that, in 1986, the notorious reactor of Chernobyl exploded, causing a nuclear disaster. The river Pripyat, the main water supplier of the country, was immensely contaminated. What is more, numerous middle class workers were left unemployed due to the privatization process in Ukraine. They have no sufficient financial means to fight the pollution and buy adequate medicine.
The people in Svatovo are facing a hard choice: they can either buy expensive clean water or drink the heavily polluted tap water. The only filtering mechanism they use is the primitive art of boiling the water, which is completely insufficient. This situation has been drawn to the H. Stepic CEE Charity’s attention by the charitable association Support for Children of Chernobyl. Since years this organization is fighting for improvement of children’s lives, whose parents have suffered severe consequences from the explosion in Chernobyl.
The schools in Svatovo unfortunately could not afford a filtration system for drinking water so far. The severity of the situation caused an instant reaction and the Charity committed itself to the case by installing water filtration systems in two public schools to meet the needs of altogether 500 children and 80 teachers as well as the maintenance personnel at the schools. The project has so far been a great success and contributes to improve the health of the children in Svatovo.
Photos: Christian Teska
