THE ATOM PROJECT LAUNCHES IN SUPPORT OF THE UN INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTING

Astana, August 27: The Atom Project launches in advance of the UN-sanctioned International Day Against Nuclear Tests and the international conference “From a Nuclear Test Ban to a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World” to be held in Astana & Semey, Kazakhstan, August 27-30, 2012. Conference participants include parliamentarians and leaders from scores of countries and activists from the non-proliferation movement all over the world.

The Atom Project is an international petition campaign designed to unify global public opinion against nuclear weapons testing. The Atom Project went live August 22, 2012 with international television and social media campaigns, a short documentary and video profiles of current survivors of nuclear testing.

The Project is an initiative of The Nazarbayev Center, whose mandate, in part, is to continue and broaden Kazakhstan’s legacy of fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons and weapons testing. The Atom Project hopes to affect real and lasting change by engaging millions of global citizens to stop nuclear weapons testing by joining together to show the world’s leaders that its citizens deserve and demand a world safe from additional nuclear weapons testing.

The Atom Project will tell the tragic and hopeful stories of survivors of nuclear testing from the region of Semey, Kazakhstan, the site of more than 450 Soviet-era nuclear tests. The survivors and their children continue to suffer from illness, disease and severe deformities caused by exposure to nuclear radiation during and after the testing, which took place 100 miles outside of the city, then called Semipalatinsk.

The images of the survivors, though sometimes difficult to witness, are featured in the campaign in order to raise awareness surrounding the damage nuclear testing can cause.

www.theatomproject.org 

www.nuclearsafeworld.org