WHAT IS AMITIM? http://www.amitim.org/main.html "Amitim (Hebrew for colleagues) is a hands-on movement in which a select group of North Americans and Israelis, ages 21-27, dedicate 7-9 months of service to underdeveloped Jewish communities in the Former Soviet Union. Amitim volunteers work closely with community leaders from their host city to rebuild Jewish infrastructures, reaffirm Jewish identities ..."

"SO YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD?  HERE'S HOW!"  http://www.amitim.org/app.doc  [The link to its extensive application form.]  "People are presented with a limited number of opportunities in their lives. ... you must reach out for them while you can."

A HEBREW ULPAN is ... an intensive course in Hebrew. http://www.fonerbooks.com/ulpan.htm
"However, there is a great deal of variation between ulpans, such as how often they meet, whether their focus is on spoken Hebrew or academic Hebrew, and how much Jewish content (if any) is part of the program. http://www.jr.co.il/aliyah/hebrew.htm for links to many ulpans.  ... For tourists, the cost for a full time (5-days a week, 4 hours per day) program is standard at about $200 a month. ... Most will allow you to sit in for a day to see if the level and style are suitable.

"Ulpans are organized by level using the Hebrew alphabet, the Aleph-Bet.  Aleph: starting with no Hebrew skills through limited reading ability with no comprehension (many American Jews fit in here). Students learn the Aleph-Bet, how to write, basic vocabulary with an emphasis on what you need to get around. This includes the ever popular "Excuse me, how do I get to the Post Office/Central Bus Station," even though there's no chance in hell you'll understand the answer before level Gimel, unless they point. ... Singing in class is popular.  Course length is eight to ten weeks, or combined with Bet and Gimel in a five-month program. ..."

CHERNOBYL Radioactive contamination of the environment has affected "the lives of more than 7 million people, including more than 3 million children," in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, according to the UN press conference marking 15 years since the accident.  Minutes of  the press conference of April 26, 2001, are available in the extensive listing of online documents at: http://www.un.org/search/ under a search for "Chernobyl and health."

Highlights:
-- Constant medical care is required by "some" of the 2.5 million affected people in the Ukraine;
-- "About 300,000 children" are included in the 1.8 million people who live in contaminated areas of Russia;
-- Other forms of cancer [besides thyroid cancer] could ... "start to show 20 years after the accident;"
-- An ecologically safe zone around the exploded reactor had not yet been created in 1998, when the Ukraine's UN representative pointed out that the existing sarcophagus "was not 100 percent proof." 

More than 12,500 recovery workers who took part in cleaning up after the accident have since died, according to "the most recent figures released by the Ukrainian Health Ministry," said Hennadiy Udovenko, a Ukrainian, who was President of the General Assembly at the time of his message on the 12th anniversary [1998] of the accident. "Many people displaced by Chernobyl may never be able to return to their homes," he said.  Their homes "will remain dangerously contaminated ... for decades to come."

In October, 2000, Ukraine representative to the UN Volodymyr Krokhmal complained, and was echoed by Belarus representative Sergei Ling, about "the lack of appropriate scientific accuracy and objectivity" of the UN committee's latest report on the Chernobyl situation. 

"Nowhere in the report," said Belarus representative Ling, "could one find the annual dose of radiation received by the population living in contaminated areas close to the accident in Belarus, Russian Federation, and Ukraine."  Two thirds of the fallout from the Chernobyl accident was in the territory of Belarus, he said, and the rate of thyroid cancer in children there was at 280 percent its pre-Chernobyl rate.