For many severely disabled children there, the future is uncertain. CCI works to build community centers in affected areas, in the hopes that there will be some support system for them after they are too old to remain in institutions.

Decades after the meltdown, the mission of CCI is complicated by the fact that there is no real consensus on how many of the region’s current problems can be directly attributed to Chernobyl.

Only 30 people died in the immediate aftermath, either from the explosion or acute radiation syndrome. But the disaster sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over hundreds of thousands of square miles of what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that would have an impact on the health of many more.

More than 200,000 people were evacuated, never to return. However, a 2005 report by “The Chernobyl Forum” (the most comprehensive to date) estimated more than 5 million remain in what have been termed “contaminated territories,” and a quarter-million live in “highly contaminated territories.”

Ten years after the explosion, a CNN team visited Chernobyl to ascertain the long-term effects of radiation exposure for those living near Chernobyl during the accident, for cleanup workers or “liquidators,” or for those who continued to live in areas that were classified as polluted. They found more questions than answers…..

Figures released by UNICEF in 2010 showed that more than 20% of adolescent children in Belarus suffered from disabilities and chronic illness. Belarus absorbed 70% of Chernobyl’s fallout…..

a priority for CCI volunteers is simply to spend time with the kids, hug them, show them some love, and help them look forward to some kind of future — whatever their link to the explosion that so altered their past.

“We’re not scientists; we’re humanitarians,” Ryan said. “We just don’t want these people to be forgotten.”