A cultural and educational center for Chernobyl evacuees has opened in the Lepel district

August 22, Lepel District /Andrei Asfura - BELTA/. The grand opening of the cultural and educational center of the International Non-Governmental Association (MINGA) "EKODOM" took place today in the village of Stary Lepel (Vitebsk region), a BELTA correspondent reports. "This initiative is aimed at giving a new life to people affected by the Chernobyl disaster," Dietrich von Bodelschwingh, a board member of the German charity "Homes instead of Chernobyl," told reporters, noting that the organization has been working in Belarus for over 16 years. The cultural and educational center is located near the settlement built for Chernobyl evacuees in the village of Stary Lepel. It is planned that the new building will host clubs for evacuees and the local population. According to the organizers, such work is an important component of the integration process of evacuees into a new environment. It is planned to invite experts from various non-governmental organizations, as well as state institutions, to the cultural and educational center to work with schoolchildren. Thanks to the cultural and educational center, the socio-economic conditions in the rural communities of the village of Stary Lepel (92 households), the village of Yurkovshchina (152 households), as well as in the settlement for evacuees (20 households) will be improved. A distinctive feature of the new building is its energy efficiency. It will feature a vacuum solar collector and a wood pellet boiler. In addition, the building is equipped with an automatic temperature control system, an innovative ventilation system, and reed insulation. Yuri Suprinovich, Executive Director of MINGA "EKODOM," told a BELTA correspondent that in the near future it is planned to expand the settlement for evacuees from the Chernobyl zone to 30 houses. "It is very important that these houses are built by evacuees together with volunteers from other countries, which means we are supporting intercultural dialogue," Dietrich von Bodelschwingh added. Thus, German and Belarusian volunteers participated in the construction of the center, and later a group of volunteers from Italy joined them. The project was financed through joint efforts of the German charity "Homes instead of Chernobyl," MINGA "EKODOM" with the support of the Department for Humanitarian Activities of the Presidential Affairs Administration of Belarus. The construction of the center was supported by monetary donations from over 350 citizens, groups, and organizations from Germany. -0-