Name given to several different charities that arose from a
grassroots level, both within and outside the former
Soviet Union, to provide aid and assistance to
children living in heavily irradiated zones after the
Chernobyl incident.
The primary mission of these ongoing charities is to provide summer-long, out-of-country vacations for the affected children, to give their bodies a chance to expel some of the excess radiation they absorb, drink, and eat. Things like a summer in France, or a summer in Florida, in the home of sponsor families.
A particularly vexing problem for these children today, some 14 years after the incident, is the astounding rate of thyroid cancers of various types.