Thank you for your donation to Operation Smile
We are hugely grateful for your kind single donation of £150. Thanks to your generosity today, more children like Annika will receive the life-saving cleft care they so desperately need. Without your kindness, none of our vital work is possible - from providing essential equipment and medical supplies, funding life-saving surgery and cleft care, to training and empowering local health teams. Your help is every bit as important as our team of highly skilled medical volunteers and gives new hope to children like Annika all around the world. your support is saving lives.
Children living with untreated cleft conditions have difficulties eating, breathing and speaking. It’s often a life and death situation and many face malnutrition, or even starvation as a result. As if this wasn’t enough to cope with, children with cleft are often rejected by peers and face a lifetime of stigma.
In the UK, cleft conditions are operated on within the first three to six months of a child being born. But, in the countries where we work, medical resources are scarce, and most families are unable access the surgery and comprehensive cleft care they need.
It’s either too costly, too far away, or simply not available at all. With your support, we’re already bringing high-quality cleft care within reach of local people, via our 27 cleft care centres in 18 countries. And, in the next decade we want to increase access to care for 1 million patients, particularly those in remote areas.
Cleft surgery can transform a child’s life in as little as 45 minutes – but there is often a whole package of specialist care needed to see our patients through childhood, adolescence and on to the happy, healthy lives they deserve. Our volunteers from across the world are all professionally certified and dedicated to providing comprehensive care for our patients and their families. From dentistry, orthodontics and speech therapy to nutritional support and psychosocial care - it’s all possible thanks to people like you.
