In late 1985, following U2's participation in
Live Aid, Bono and Hewson spent five weeks as aid volunteers in
Ajibar during the
1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. She saw children with no possessions and at risk of death; despite this, to her they appeared more spiritually alive than those in Ireland who had material comforts but seemed spoiled and spiritually unaware, like her own children. In 1992, Hewson participated in
Greenpeace protests against the
Sellafield plant for
nuclear reprocessing, located across the
Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. but she said she had not been responsible for that particular protest. After a request by activist
Adi Roche, (shortened to Chernobyl Children International in 2010), an organisation founded and run by Roche that works with children, families, and communities that continue to be affected by Chernobyl. in one case she had to retreat quickly when a fire spread in a village a few miles from Chernobyl. Hewson has made sure her own children met those from Chernobyl with birth deformities and other illnesses, so that they would have a broader appreciation of the world and what to be thankful for. In 2009, she staged a public
abseil of the 17-storey
Elysian Tower in
Cork to raise funds for the organisation. She returned to the Sellafield issue in 2002, noting that while Ireland had no nuclear power plants itself, Belarus had been the most affected region even though Chernobyl was not in it, and that was "exactly what could happen in Ireland if there was an explosion at Sellafield." In April 2002, Hewson was one of the leaders of an effort which delivered over a million postcards demanding that the facility be shut down; recipients included British Prime Minister
Tony Blair,
Prince Charles, and
Norman Askew, head of
British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The campaign was backed by celebrities, including
Ronan Keating and
Samantha Mumba, (Labour had succeeded with its candidate
Mary Robinson in the
1990 election but came in fourth with Roche in the
1997 election.) Hewson stated that she had not been approached, and that "It's not a serious proposition. It would obviously be a huge honour if I was asked to take on such a huge task, but for one thing I'm not sure I'm qualified, and for another I've got four small kids to bring up first." She also expressed contentment with incumbent President
Mary McAleese staying for another term. She jokingly added that she could not see Bono agreeing to live in a smaller house. The notion of her running for Irish president came up again in 2008 in conjunction with the
2011 election. In 2003, plans were announced to build the so-called Exploration Station as part of the proposed
Heuston Gate development near the
Dublin Heuston railway station. Hewson said, "Seeing as we're nearly the last European country in on it, we can learn from children's museums already up and running and expand on them". The effects of the
2008 financial crisis then put a halt to the entire Heuston Gate project. As of August 2016, the site was finally fixed as between Earlsfort Terrace and the Iveagh Gardens, and as of October 2019, the post of CEO was advertised. In 2015 Hewson signed an open letter which the
ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to
Angela Merkel and
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation. == Business career ==