World BEYOND War’s Zaporizhzhya Protection Project will send a team of four volunteers to Ukraine on April 7, invited by people in close proximity to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant on the front lines of the war.
These four are part of a larger group of volunteers from a total of eight countries who have been meeting for months to learn about unarmed civilian protection (UCP) practices that can be used to protect people in violent conflict zones.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called for a nuclear safe zone around the plant to protect it from hostilities that could cause a nuclear disaster on the scale of Chernobyl but has been unable to get it done.
Our team asks for your best wishes and spiritual support. If you would like to help cover the cost of the mission, please donate to World BEYOND War and specify that it is for the Zaporizhzhya Protection Project.
The team has the following mission statement:
Mission Statement of the Zaporizhzhya Protection Project Travel Team
The Zaporizhzhya Protection Project is a venture of international volunteers who want to help ensure the safety of people whose lives are at risk from war-related damage to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Some of us will be traveling to Ukraine on April 7, 2023, to meet with people who share our common concern for the safety of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Here is the explanation of the “what” and “why” for this visit.
What:
The purpose of our visit is to meet community leaders and people in the power plant zone who are at high risk due to the current level of fighting taking place there, and who will be among the first to suffer the effects of radioactivity if the nuclear power plant is seriously damaged. We want to see for ourselves the conditions under which the population is suffering. Above all, we will be interested in listening carefully to what people want to share about life under such conditions and what their current needs are. We are particularly interested in ideas and suggestions from these people regarding non-military solutions since there is a fundamental understanding that military activities pose a serious threat when it comes to nuclear power plants.
Why:
We were inspired to undertake this project by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and others who are working to reduce the risk, made more acute by recurring incidents at the plant, in order to protect the large populations in Eurasia and beyond. Various parties located near the plant continue to report incidents in and around the plant that may be threatening to the region. Because a more stable security situation would affect everyone present in the power plant zone, we plan to listen to as many parties as possible to understand their ideas on how to ensure the plant’s security and reduce the possibility of a nuclear disaster looming in the region.
Charles Johnson
Illinois, USA
Peter Lumsdaine
Washington, USA
John Reuwer,
Maryland, USA
On behalf of the dozens of volunteers from eight countries around the globe.