Gennady Grushevoy (also known as Hienadź Hrušavy; ; 24 July 1950 – 28 January 2014) was a Belarusian academic, politician, human rights and environmental activist and the founder of one of the first Chernobyl relief foundations. He was awarded the 1999 Rafto Prize for “his many years of courageous work for democracy and human rights in Belarus”.
Early life and career
Grushevoy was born in Minsk, the capital of Soviet Belarus, on 24 July 1950. In 1973 he graduated from the Belarusian State University with a degree in Philosophy and stayed on to pursue an academic career. His main academic interest was the history of Renaissance philosophy in Western Europe and Belarus.
During Gorbachev’s Perestroika Grushevoy began to participate actively in the democratic national movement, the Belarusian Popular Front. In 1989 he was arrested for organising various political and protest actions commemorating the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus.
Chernobyl Relief Foundation
Grushevoy’s goal was to set up self-help organizations at the grassroots level. In 1989 Grushevoy established a non-governmental charitable fund dedicated to helping Belarusian children affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The fund was officially registered in 1990 as a non-profit, non-governmental Belarusian Charitable Fund «For the Children of Chernobyl». The organisation promoted civil movement initiatives within Belarus and worked on a variety of humanitarian programmes. The fund sent a large number of children with serious illnesses to Western Europe and North America for short trips meant to provide them with good medical care and distributed large quantities of humanitarian aid, such as medicine, in the region affected by the disaster.
Other activities
Apart from the relief work, Grushevoy also worked with civil movement initiatives involving young people from different regions in Belarus and contributed to development of youth centres throughout the country, where young Belarusians meet to address social, political and cultural issues. For many years he and his organisation arranged annual youth festivals and conferences in Minsk under the common name of the project “Look into the future”.
Harassment by Belarusian Authorities
In 1997 Grushevoy’s organisation had fallen under government scrutiny and a special commission of the KGB was set up to investigate its operations. This was part of a general harassment campaign against NGOs in 1997-2000 as President Lukashenka sought to impose state control over the sector.