THE founder of the ground-breaking Haslemere-based charity which has provided untold health benefits for more than 60,000 people affected by the devastating Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 has been made an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Victor Mizzi, 81, who set up Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline in 1991 and masterminded the work of the charity for almost 30 years from his home in Petworth Road, Haslemere, retired from his role as chief executive earlier this year.

“I am delighted, it is a great honour for the charity,” said Mr Mizzi, who has seen Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline go from strength to strength, from its early beginnings in the town to today having a network of links in the UK from across England, Scotland and Wales.

“It is good for the people that helped me because of their work on behalf of the people that have hosted the children.”

Mr Mizzi, who was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last year for his work with Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline, continues to keep a watching eye on the charity which he set up after radiation spewed out from the reactor at the nuclear plant in Ukraine for 10 days, contaminating a vast area of neighbouring Belarus and exposing generations of children to cancer and genetic disorders.

Mr Mizzi founded the charity to give child victims of the nuclear disaster recuperative breaks of four weeks in the UK, a commitment that continues to this day.

Earlier this year, the Haslemere Herald published an interview with Mr Mizzi and Pauline Fitter, who leads the charity’s link in Haslemere, when Mr Mizzi thanked the many people in the town who had helped to make charity such a success.

“People think that after 30 years, it is over, but Chernobyl will be blighted for hundreds of years and generations are still being born with problems.”