Mr. Vladimir P. Danilenko, Chairman of the Slavgorod District Executive Committee  The Chernobyl NPP accident took a heavy toll of the Slagorod land: the morbidity level increased, many people were forced to leave their homes, some of the most prosperous farms had to close down for good.
People are still suffering from the consequences of the disaster despite the fact that, so many years since, people got used to the tragedy and no longer regard it as a global problem, but only as a threat to the residents of the affected areas. But as long as there is nuclear energy, not a single country or a human being can feel safe. And it does not really matter whether they have nuclear power plants or they are located thousands of kilometres away.
The world community’s commitment to help our affected regions is usually of a humanitarian nature. Yet people living here wish to help themselves, and restore their native land. That is why now is the right time to address these challenges, and hopefully the CORE Programme would help consolidate the disunited efforts of our districts for the common cause. Then our people would feel themselves rightful members of the world family of states able to speak to others on equal terms.
This is a pilot programme, but we hope that while improving people’s living standards it will learn from its own mistakes and develop accordingly.
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