After years of waiting, five surgical programmes and countless obstacles, Leana reaches the end of her courageous journey to a new smile.
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Inspiring stories
In northwestern Rwanda, six month old Adolphe receives much needed care thanks to Operation Smile.
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Joycelyn was abandoned by her mother because of her cleft. She needed urgent help. Thankfully Operation Smile and a lady called Cynthia stepped in to give her the love and care she needed.
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This beautiful smile belongs to Jupiter. Today he’s a confident and happy 14 year old who loves basketball. But, his beaming smile is a world apart from the lonely little boy we first met ten years ago. A shy four year old who was teased because of his cleft condition.
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As parents who had been raising two healthy children, Armand and his wife, Solo, couldn’t have foreseen what happened when their third child, Brunel, was born with a cleft lip.
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Isaac is a sweet 2 month old who was born with a cleft condition. His mum, Noemí, found support through Operation Smile Dominican Republic.
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The love Sabine’s mother had for her wasn’t diminished by the reality of having a child with a cleft lip. If anything, her love intensified when she set out to find a solution.
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Holding her 3-week-old child in her arms, Benjebi tried to process the news she’d just received: Her son, Mohamed, was too young to receive cleft surgery.
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During a recent surgical programme in Antsirabe, Madagascar, more than 120 children and adults received life-changing cleft surgery and cleft care.
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Programme updates
Find out how our surgical programmes are strengthening local health systems and training the next generation of medical leaders.
Training anaesthetists in Rwanda
Anaesthesia is vital to the delivery of safe surgery, but there is a dramatic shortage of trained anaesthetists in Rwanda. In this densely populated country, 11.9 million people are served by just 15 anaesthetists and anaesthesiologists.
Dr Paulin Banguti is working to fill this void – he’s director of the post-graduate anaesthesia programme at the University of Rwanda. During the March 2016 Operation Smile surgical training rotation at Rwinkwavu District Hospital, he led a group of anaesthesia residents to observe and learn from volunteer anaesthesiologists from around the world.
Strengthening health systems in Malawi
To enable Operation Smile to serve and treat more people living with cleft conditions, we focus on increasing the surgical capacity of low-and middle-income countries like Malawi so that cleft care for local people can continue, even after a surgical programme ends.
Operation Smile Malawi has worked to encourage and educate local surgeons, doctors and nurses, and now has nearly 50 percent of its medical volunteers from Malawi. Surgical training rotations train and empower local surgeons to help their own communities and strengthen health systems for the future.
