We should marvel at the resilience of children. They hang on to hope with a grip that few adults can muster. Maybe it's because, when their young lives are troubled, they don't know anything else. So they don't complain. They just get on with trying to make life better.

But there's more to it than that. Children have a grace that defies despair, an innocence that refuses to die. Like butterflies, their season is brief, but it is magical.

Lucky children have all the magic, and none of the disappointment. Other children, who are struck by illness and loss, must learn to keep their faith in happy endings, even when all seems lost.

The stories on this page celebrate remarkable children. Raisa was one of those children you see in TV footage, crippled and rocking back and forth in an lonely cot in a Russian orphanage. You would not have dared hope she would some day have a loving family, the best medical care and a school that has embraced her as one of their own.

Then there's Martin, who if given a choice between the full use of his legs, and having his dead father back, would choose his father. Can't play football? Then play snooker. Can't be a carpenter? Then be an architect.

Don't let disappointment win.

And, finally, there is Adrian, who has been successfully treated for cancer and wants to be a doctor so that he can save the lives of children, just as his life was saved. Seeing Manchester United play would be icing on the cake.

Thirty-three quiet, tidy children sitting at their desks in first class in the St Mary's Convent of Mercy national school, Trim, Co, Meath. Grey uniforms and school-books. Greetings recited in confident Irish. Best behaviour for the journalist. Serious little faces.

"Guess which one's Raisa!" I try to guess. You? Shy smile. You? Screwed-up lips. Everyone's in on the joke. I can't guess. Raisa, Russian doll, has assimilated so well that you cannot tell her apart from her Irish classmates.

"There she is!" Raisa looks up and stares. Wise face and soulful brown eyes.

"Hi, Raisa! Nice to meet you." She half-smiles and looks tentatively into my eyes, sussing me out in a split-second. This is a child who has had to learn to trust adults. She stands up and you can hardly tell, when she walks, that her legs are torture to her. Only her grey trousers, hiding the twisted, misshapen limbs, give away that she is in any way different from other little girls. I marvel, considering what I've already heard, that she plays football in the schoolyard and gives it her best.

We sit at a desk in the back of the classroom and she quietly tells me her story.

From infancy, she lived in children's home number three in Minsk. That is where babies like her, their bodies riddled and deformed by radiation, were hidden away by the authorities. She didn't know her parents and younger brother very well. Sometimes they visited her and brought sweets.

"It made me happy when I saw them because I did not like living in the orphanage," says Raisa.

"Tell me about life in Russia," I ask.

"I didn't like it," she replies. "The food's nicer here. We have meat. I like meat. And chips and fruit. And porridge - I like Irish porridge." In the orphanage, the children were given sausages, porridge and soup. Usually porridge. "Not nice," says Raisa.

What she isn't telling me is that in Russia she had a cleft lip and palate. She couldn't swallow. Her legs were so deformed, growing backwards with clubbed feet twisted around, that she couldn't leave her bed. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, all day long. But she knew what was going on.

She has bad memories. When the children were taken for walks, there was trouble coming. The children were told to collect nettles. The adults in the orphanage beat the children with the nettles, which stung but left no mark.

In the bed beside Raisa there was a girl with no legs. "It was very sad. I didn't like having to look at it. She was very bold as well," says Raisa.

I wonder what "bold" means, when you have no legs and no parents.

"They were very mean in the orphanage. For no reason they would be mean. Yelling and hitting sometimes. Slapping with nettles. I didn't like Russia at all."

Then, she adds happily, "This is a safe place. Not like Russia." Raisa has been rescued by the Chernobyl Children's Project. She is one of the first "Chernobyl children" to be legally adopted by Irish parents: Ann and Tom Carolan, who have five other grown children - Osra, Declan, Tomβs, Regina, Julianne, now joined by Osra's Texan husband Sean.

Each summer, for eight years, Ann has brought 20 Chernobyl children to stay with them. Ann tells me that Raisa and other children experienced far worse abuses in the orphanage, but that these horrors cannot be written about in the newspaper.

It might make the Russian authorities angry. They might stop sending children to the Republic.

But I can tell, by the look that Ann exchanges with the principal of Raisa's new school, C≤il∅n ╙ Co∅gligh,that the story, if told, would be horrendous.

I can also tell, when I met ╙ Co∅gligh, that while Raisa is special, she is being treated merely with the same care and consideration as special children are treated in the Convent of Mercy national school, which has 500 pupils. This is a special place. Apart from the 26 mainstream teachers, there are an additional eight special education teachers and two classes for children with speech and language difficulties. Children come from all over Co Meath. Those with special learning needs are mainstreamed into ordinary classes. For example, in Raisa's class there is a child with Asperger's Syndrome who has a classroom assistant, Karen, devoted to him. Karen helps Raisa as well, which is a bonus.

Each child with special needs has an IEP - individual education programme. These children spend part of the day in mainstream classes and part of the day in special classes devoted to their needs.

╙ Co∅gligh, father of two adopted children, has fought for the best possible resources for his school. Like many headmasters, he finds that a lack of psychologists is hampering efforts. Every year, he needs 44 psychological assessments for children with special needs, but the Department of Education can only offer him five a year. "Give me a call, Minister," says ╙ Co∅gligh.

This impression of a caring school where children are appreciated for their differences, only adds the feeling that Raisa has experienced a miracle. "She is one of the happiest kids in the school," says ╙ Co∅gligh, "which is all the more remarkable when you think of the trauma she has had in her life."

Ann, too, is amazed at Raisa's determination. "In the morning, you never have to call her. She gets herself up and dressed, she washes herself, then has breakfast. She listens for her brother Tom going out the door - she has to see Tom. Every morning they have a little game. Raisa hides his hairbrush and Tom goes around, 'where's my hairbrush?' " Normal family life. Brothers and sisters. Parents who love you. Good food. A school that cares. And the medical treatment - a miracle in itself.

Surgeon Michael Early has been like another father to Raisa. She looks up to him as a "wonderful person". When she came to him first, she could not swallow because of her cleft lip and palate and her legs could not hold her. Her ear hurt because, it was eventually discovered, a nurse at the children's home had put a dried bean in it.

After two years of treatment, Raisa has a beautiful re-built mouth and can enjoy her food - especially ice cream. She can walk short distances.

So many people have helped Raisa to heal, but - it has to be said - Raisa has been the real angel. She has shown the capacity to heal herself and accept a new life. Her courage is, quite simply, awesome.

The Chernobyl Children's Project has sent more than £18.5 million worth of aid to the Chernobyl region, and has brought 7,000 children to Ireland on recuperative holidays.

For further information: Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, tel: 01-4096100

Chernobyl Children's Project, tel: 021-4506411, fax: 021-4551544, website: www.chernobyl-ireland.com