Charmaine rises to Belarus challenge

Rose of Tralee Charmaine Kenny has just returned from Belarus - one of the most challenging trips of her year so far.As the 2009 Rose, one of Charmaine's charities is CCPI Chernobyl's Children Project Ireland, which helps those affected by the unimaginable nuclear disaster in 1988.Charmaine, whose parents originally come from Mullingar, said this week that the trip which included a visit to a children's mental asylum, was "harrowing" but the Rose said that she also felt a great sense of hope and gained a great insight to the work of her adopted charity."Some of the children that we saw at ages 11, 12 and 13 have been bed-bound for their entire lives and their beds have become their entire worlds," she said."Obviously the asylum was a difficult visit, there were hard things to see. There are children with terrible deformities, deformed limbs, hydrocephalus, there are all sorts of physical and mental difficulties that these children have to live with. It's hard to pinpoint all these conditions to the effects of radiation."What people say about Chernobyl is that the disaster hasn't really happened yet because the effects of the radiation will continue to affect people here for thousands of years."CCPI is would to be known to people in Westmeath because for a long time they organised what are known as respite trips; where children from Chernobyl came to stay with Irish families. But what most people don't know is that 90 per cent of the work the charity does is on the ground in Belarus with the orphanages and hospitals."The Home of Hope project is something which is working very well and I was happy to have been able to see that. The project is about taking children from orphanages and placing them in the care of a 'mock' family, so that two foster parents might care for up to 13 children between them. It sounds mad but it works very well and it was lovely to see the children so happy and in what had become a natural family environment for them."Charmaine was at home in Kildare briefly last week before going back to Kerry and then on to London for dinner with the Irish ambassador."It's been a hard job alright," she laughed. "It's actually been amazing, what else could I say? Believe it or not we are starting to look for more Roses for the 2010 competition already. I will probably be flying to New Zealand and Australia for the heats as well."