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Hello Friend,
Cleft surgery immediately transforms lives — but for many children with clefts, surgery is only one step on the journey toward a happier, healthier future. This is why Smile Train is committed to supporting our partners in going beyond surgery to make a personalized, comprehensive range of cleft care possible for all of our patients.
In 2009, a few hundred patients benefited from pilot non-surgical comprehensive cleft care programs across four countries — Mexico, Ghana, India, and Thailand.
These pilot programs included speech therapy and orthodontics, ensuring that children learned to speak with confidence after their surgery and had what they needed to grow up with a healthy, happy smile.
When our donors saw how effective these services were in transforming the lives of children in need, they stepped up to help us expand them to include pre-surgical nutritional guidance, psychosocial support, and dental services. |
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This kind of care makes all the difference for children like my friend Gael from Mexico. When he was born, his cleft made him choke on breast milk; he became so dangerously underweight and malnourished that he was too unhealthy to receive the cleft surgery he so desperately needed.
Fortunately, because of the generosity and care of our donors, Smile Train’s local partners were there to place a small retainer in his mouth so he could feed properly. They also provided his parents with the nutritional supplements he needed to reach a healthy enough weight for surgery.
Today, nearly five years after his first treatments, Gael continues to receive emotional support services and loves going to speech therapy sessions with other kids receiving cleft care. Smile Train made it all possible.
Now, this boy who struggled to even reach a healthy weight for surgery lights up every room he enters with his smile and infectious energy. Ask him his favorite thing to do and he’ll proudly yell, “Help others!” He says he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up so he can dedicate his life to helping others, just as Smile Train and our heroic donors helped him.
Gael is one of the lucky ones. Sponsoring these additional comprehensive cleft care services is not easy. Each requires lots of planning, specialized training, and expense. But turning our backs on children struggling to speak, eat, and socialize is not an option.
That’s why we are so committed to not only supporting comprehensive cleft care services everywhere we work, but expanding them into new areas like art therapy — because the need is great, the impact is proven, and we believe children like Gael are worth it.
But these children will not receive the help they need without reliable support from people like you who understand how serious clefts are and believe every child deserves a life free of sickness, loneliness, and shame.
A world where no child has to suffer from an untreated cleft is within our grasp. We just need you by our side, Friend. Will you consider making a gift today? |
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On behalf of Gael, his family, and the recipients of the more than 2 million surgeries — and counting! — whose lives we’ve transformed since 1999, thank you for your support.
With gratitude,
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