A smile is so important for so many reasons. It takes one smile to cause a ripple effect and make everyone around you smile too. I know that when I have a horrible day a smile from one of my kids is all it takes to make a bad day a good one. Or when one of them has done something they shouldn’t have and smile in a way that I just can’t be upset. Like when my little guy yells in the car. He’s just having a good time and when I look back and get this smile in return how can I let his yelling bother me?
What if he couldn’t flash me that grin? What if he couldn’t smile? When I was pregnant I learned how common it is to be born with a cleft lip and it was a big fear of mine. Thanks to modern medicine they could confirm in the ultrasound that my boys were fine but not every pregnant mother has that. Or can afford the surgery after to repair it.
Thankfully there is Smile Train. Smile Train is an international children’s charity with a sustainable approach to a single, solvable problem: cleft lip and palate. Smile Train surgery can take as little as 45 minutes and can cost as little as $250 (£150).
Millions of children in developing countries with unrepaired clefts live in shame, but more importantly, have difficulty eating, breathing and speaking. Cleft repair surgery is simple, and the transformation is immediate. Our sustainable model provides training and funding to empower local doctors in 85+ developing countries to provide 100%-free cleft repair surgery in their communities.
We use the “teach a man to fish” model focusing on training local doctors to perform cleft repairs in their communities. Those doctors then go on to train other doctors creating a long-term, sustainable system.
Patients see their smile for the first time, parents cry tears of joy, lives and communities are changed forever.
As a result of our efficiency and with the support of our donors and partners around the world, Smile Train has transformed the lives of more than one million children by giving them the power of a smile — that’s roughly 340 surgeries a day and 127,000 every year.
Join us and change the world one smile at a time.
Can you imagine not being able to provide a life changing surgery to your child? Some of these children are left to be picked on and teased. Could you imagine knowing it cost as little as $250 and you couldn’t provide it?
Smile Train has helped more than one million children in 15 years, but there are still millions of children living with unrepaired clefts. Thanks to the “Power of a Smile” and the great work of Smile Train you can help. With the support of donors and partners around the world, Smile Train has transformed the lives of more than one million children by giving them the power of a smile — that’s roughly 340 surgeries a day and 127,000 every year.
Smile Train surgery provides a child with not just a new smile, but a second chance at life.
Smile Train has a sustainable approach to a single, solvable problem: cleft lip and palate. Smile Train’s model provides training and funding to empower local doctors in developing countries provide 100%- free cleft repair surgery in their communities. Join us and change the world with the power of a smile.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Smile Train. The opinions and text are all mine.
