Gomel children visit Town House
03/08/06
Children from Aberdeen's twin town of Gomel in Belarus visited the Town House this week as part of a month-long recuperative holiday.
The youngsters, who are all aged between nine and 11, were met by Lord Provost John Reynolds on Tuesday and were given a tour of the Town House, including the civic rooms.
They were each presented with a small gift as a souvenir of their visit and enjoyed a spread of sandwiches, biscuits and cakes.
Their holiday has been organised by Chernobyl Children's LifeLine, which has brought more than 40,000 children to stay with host families in the UK since 1992.
Belarus received 70% of the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 and as a result, thousands are born every year or go on to develop thyroid cancer, bone cancer and leukaemia.
A month's holiday – with clean air, water and food – is said to add a further two years to the children's life expectancy.
The Lord Provost said: "It was great to meet all the children from Gomel and to show them round the Town House and tell them more about Aberdeen. It was good to see them all enjoying their holiday and they are also looking forward to visiting some of the local attractions while they are here."
Aberdeen is twinned with Regensburg in Germany, Clermont-Ferrand in France, Bulawayo in Zimbabwe and Stavanger in Norway as well as Gomel, which has had a twinning agreement with the Granite City since 1990.
Twinning started after World War II as a way of encouraging reconciliation between people in Europe. Most twinning links were initially between French and German towns, but the UK also became involved.
Aberdeen's twin city activities in recent years have included education, culture and the arts, sport, tourism, commerce, science and technology, health and medical matters, environmental projects and language learning, with benefits to people in each city.
For more details go to http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Tourism/tur_TownTwinning.asp
The charity's website is at http://www.chernobylchildlifeline.org
