Adi Roche

Founder & International Executive Director
Chernobyl Children’s Project International, Inc.

Adi Roche has spent the majority of her life campaigning for peace, humanitarian aid, and education. In 1990, she became the first Irish woman to be elected to the Board of Directors of the International Peace Bureau (IBP), based in Geneva. Adi is also responsible for creating the Peace Education Program that is taught in classrooms throughout Ireland, and is the first woman ever to be chosen by an alliance of broad-spectrum political parties to run for President of Ireland in the election of 1997.

As the Founder of Chernobyl Children’s Project International, Adi has worked for the past 15 years to provide humanitarian aid to the children of Belarus, Western Russia and the Ukraine. Under her leadership, the project has initiated 16 aid programs and delivered humanitarian and medical aid valued at over $50M to the areas most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A rest and recuperation program has enabled more than 11,000 sick children to come to Ireland for medical treatment and recuperation over the past 12 summers. The Belarusian government has awarded Adi the Franskaya Scorina Humanitarian Presidental Medal in recognition of her work with the children of Belarus. Adi and the work of Chernobyl Children's Project International was featured in the 2004 Academy Award winning film "Chernobyl Heart." That same year, she was the keynote speaker at the United Nations General Session commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and she was appointed to represent NGOs on the Steering Commitee of the UN's International Chernobyl Research and Information Network (ICRIN).

Adi has been awarded the European Woman Laureate Award, Irish Person of the Year, European Person of the Year award, and the Paul Harris Fellowship Award for exceptional service to the community by the Rotary of Ireland.