As part of the Moodie Davitt Virtual Travel Retail Expo’s support for cleft charity Smile Train, we are running a regular series that highlights the organisation’s life-changing work.
As reported, The Moodie Davitt Report is to fund a cleft operation through Smile Train for every paid exhibitor at the pioneering event.
Smile Train has supported over 1.5 million cleft surgeries since 1999. Every five minutes Smile Train-supported cleft treatment helps a child in need. Some 200,000 babies are born every year with cleft lips and/or palates. US$250 funds the cost of the 45-minute cleft surgery that transforms the life of a child – and that of his or her family. |
We introduce you to four very different characters – Maria from Kenya; and Ahlam, Yassin and little Habeeba from Egypt – whose lives have been drastically changed for the better by Smile Train.
Maria was born with a cleft lip in rural Kenya in 1953. As a child she was often ill and she was teased at every turn.
She felt she was the luckiest woman on earth when she met a man who loved her as she was. They married and had three children; and Maria became a grandmother and a great-grandmother, all while living with an untreated cleft.
Well aware that many people did not want her near them, Maria missed out on celebrations and community events over the years. She accepted her fate but never stopped dreaming of a life without stares and whispers; where everyone would see her as her own family did.
When she was 65, Maria met a health worker from Smile Train partner, IcFEM Dreamland Hospital. She heard they offered cleft surgery and, determined and full of resolve, she walked two days to get there. After passing necessary health screenings, Maria received free Smile Train-Supported surgery.
And now there is nothing to stop her smiling as she teaches her grandchildren and great-grandchildren that anything they dream can be possible.
“Thank you, Smile Train, for finally letting me smile at my beautiful family,” she said.
When Habeeba was born in Egypt, the doctor was aghast. He bluntly told her mother, Ahlam, that he had never seem a baby like her before. Ahlam did not know what had happened; she could not understand why her baby had a cleft lip and palate.
Ahlam and her husband Yassin kept the little baby at home, away from prying eyes until the family was referred to Smile Train partner Kids Hospital in Giza. There the surgeon, Dr. Mamdouh Aboulhassan, was able to answer all their questions and assured them that Habeeba could have cleft lip surgery at no cost to them.
The surgery was transformational; Ahlam and Yassin finally took her out of the house and introduced her to their community.
Habeeba returned to Kids Hospital later that year for her Smile Train-sponsored cleft palate surgery, which made it much easier for her to eat.
Like Maria in Kenya, Ahlam and Yassin are forever grateful for the people who changed their lives forever. Their blessing is simple: “May God reward all Smile Train donors with goodness”.
[Make the investment of a lifetime. Just US$21 per month is all it takes to sponsor life-changing cleft surgery for one more child every year. Visit smiletrain.org to make a gift today.]
*PREVIOUSLY FEATURED SMILE TRAIN EXPERIENCES INCLUDE:
Meet Sel, Maxime and Divine, three children whose lives have been changed by Smile Train
Meet Kenzu and his parents Susilawati and Heri from Indonesia
Meet nine-year-old Wang Li from China, René and Cristina from Ecuador and Anji from India
