Photo Exhibition on Chernobyl is opened at the United Nations Headquarters
27.04.2017On April 26, 2017, the opening ceremony of the photo exhibition “You Are Not Alone: Celebrating the Healing Power of Empathy and Compassion in the Face of the Tragedy” was conducted at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to commemorate the first International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
The event was jointly organized by the Permanent Mission of Belarus to the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme Office in Belarus and the two most prominent non-governmental organisations of the United States and Ireland, who identified their main goal of helping Chernobyl children: Ramapo Chernobyl Project and Chernobyl Children International. The exhibition features photographs from the archives of these organisations, as well as the work of Philip Grossman, an American photographer, who visited Belarus in November 2016.
The aim of the event was to pay tribute to the assistance, sympathy, unselfishness and humanity that were expressed to the people of Belarus at a difficult time for the country.
During the ceremony, an address was read out by the Foreign Minister of Belarus, in which Vladimir Makei, on behalf of the Government of Belarus, expressed gratitude to the states, international organisations, charitable non-governmental organisations and people of good will for assisting in the implementation in Belarus of important projects in the sphere of health protection and ecology, for the tremendous contribution to recuperation and medical treatment of children from the Chernobyl-affected as well as valuable humanitarian assistance to Belarus.
The founder of the American charitable organisation Ramapo Chernobyl Project Donald Cairns spoke about the efforts of the Ramapo High School to support children from the Chernobyl regions. The Chair of the US Board of Chernobyl Children International Kathleen Ryan read out a special message from the President of Ireland, made on the occasion of the International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
President of the UN General Assembly Peter Tomson and UN Secretary-General António Guterres sent their special addresses to the participants of the event.
The opening ceremony was attended by heads and staff of the UN member states’ missions in New York, UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, and private US citizens.
The photo exhibition has become one of a series of events at the United Nations to commemorate the first International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day. Earlier, at the beginning of April, a meeting of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Chernobyl took place with the participation of a number of countries and international organisations. On April 26, Belarus also conducted a round table on international cooperation on Chernobyl.
