100 Smiles in 100th Mission

It is estimated that 1 in 700 children in India is born with this Cleft deformity. Every year around 35,000 infants are born with this painful yet correctable condition.

1 in 10 such infant born with cleft don’t make it to 1^st birthday due to acute malnutrition and other medical complications. We at Mission Smile are committed to change 3500 such lives annually and seek the partial support and funding to reach this target.

Cleft deformities deprive children of a life of dignity and opportunity. Despite cleft being a medical condition; it has serious social and emotional implications in the life of the concerned child. There have been known cases of abandoning, disowning, selling, isolation and ostracisation of children with cleft. Moreover, there are cases of school dropouts because of ridicule or lack of friends mingling with them or any other reasons that might cause mental stress and trauma preventing cleft children from attending schools. This ultimately results in their ending up unemployed or taking up menial jobs in the future.

Though cleft is a corrective deformity, yet access to quality care and treatment is very low. Without adequate treatment, these children struggle to speak, eat, and participate in society. Trapped within their own bodies, they miss education and livelihood opportunities, and remain in the periphery of their society, deprived of basic human dignity.

On the positive side this is a deformity which has a proven solution, a solution which can take as little as a 45-minute surgical procedure at the right facility with trained medical personnel.

We succesfully operated 3 siblings from remote village of NE India. Family thanks each of your supporters for helping them. 

We are pleased to inform you that we have successfully completed 500+ surgeries in this financial year 2022-23 and are hoping to complete 3000+ surgeries in the year. 

We are grateful for all the support and contribution made to our project, each dollar contributed has changed a life forever. We are providing free comprehensive cleft care with world class medical safety and protocols. 

Covid19 have changed a lot of things and our cleft kids also faced many changelleges, with surgeries coming to halt. A huge backlog of cases have piled up in the last couple of years. 

We seek your support, help and donation to provide these life changing surgeries!

We thank each one of you for your generous support and contribution in this Project. 

Last couple of years have been really difficult for the world with Covid19 looming alwaying in our lives. This time have been particulary difficult four our cleft kids. They are due to thier deformities already a high risk section, and covid-19 have delayed care to them, with lockdowns, burden on health services, suspension of elective surgeries contributed to a huge backlog of cases. 

Your support today is needed more than ever, We have delivered more than 300+ surgeries in last 90 days and gave committed to serve and spread smiles to another 3000 kids in next 12 months. We seek your whole hearted support for this. 

Thank You!

At Mission Smile’s Guwahati Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre (GC4) were regularly visited by parents who accompany their kids born with cleft lip and/or palate deformities. We offer free medical evaluation, advice treatment, guide needy beneficiaries through our nutrition program and conduct free cleft rectification surgeries to the selected candidates. Moreover, we conduct follow-up (review) camps to track the progress of the surgery recipients. In a word, at GC4 we provide Comprehensive Cleft Care to patients from Assam and other adjoining North Eastern states.

Emma (name changed), a 5-year-old baby girl from Sonapur in Assam, who was born with a cleft lip. A very cheerful and sweet baby, she is the youngest of her 5 elder siblings. While enquiring about her parent’s background we came to know that Emma’s mother got married at the age of 14 (an under-age marriage). But that’s not all, due to mounting social obligations; she was forced to marry a man who was almost 25 years older to her! Now, in a family of seven members, both the parents had to work hard to earn their daily bread. Emma’s father works as a manual labour while her mother is a vegetable vendor.

When Emma was born, her mother was inconsolable after seeing her baby’s cleft deformity. She had never seen a cleft child before! Her initial discomfort about Emma’s cleft deformity affected the mother-child bond, but gradually love took over fear, and she accepted her baby’s condition. Misfortune showed up yet again when the lactating mother was diagnosed with scabies and hence was not allowed to feed her new-born! But like it is said “time heals and makes a person stronger”, after her recovery, Emma’s mother became determined to get her daughter treated. She brought Emma to Guwahati Medical College and from there she was referred to GC4. Emma was selected for cleft rectification surgery but her surgery date was deferred as she was diagnosed with scabies.

Finally, after recovery from scabies, Emma was successfully operated on our Comprehensive Cleft Care Centre in Guwahati. It was perhaps the brightest day for Emma and her mother. The little angel embraced her ‘New Smile’!

We thank our team of doctors and medical/ non-medical volunteers as well as our donors and supporters whose contribution and determination to ‘do good’ helped us in gifting little Emma with a smile to last for her lifetime!

We want to help more children like Emma through this campaign by making it on-going.

So, we appeal to you to start a recurring donation to help fund ongoing post-surgery treatment for cleft children.

Amount does not matter; your participation does - for these children who need prolonged care and treatment even after their successful cleft surgeries.

Here’s the link to our project page: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/make-a-smile-gift/ to make a recurring investment in the futures of these kids.

Our goal is to raise 50 recurring donations in next 30 days and each one counts..............

Thank you for being there for Emma throughout.

Priyankit Panwar | Manager - Partnerships
M: +91-9953981906 | E: priyankit.panwar@missionsmile.org
Website: www.missionsmile.org

Dear Smile Givers,

With pandemic hitting us hard, we were made to halt our operations. We did complete 800+ surgeries in the past year.