OPERATION SMILE: Saturday 8th of September 2012

"Changing lives one smile at a time"

Operation smile is a worldwide children's medical charity whose network of global volunteers is dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children and young adults. It was founded in 1982 in Norfolk (USA), and has provided free surgery and related health care to more than 160 000 patients born with cleft lips and other facial deformities all over the world. The organization is present in more than 60 countries, with 12 in Africa.

In each country where they work, their goal is to create self-sustainable programs that provide free surgical care as well as education and training. They ensure every patient treated by Operation Smile benefits from the best equipment, procedures and highly trained medical volunteers, no matter where they live.

In Kenya, approximately one in 500 to 700 children is born with a cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Children suffering from clefts often face numerous challenges to their health and survival. Facial clefts aren't just a cosmetic problem: 1 in 10 children born with a cleft dies before reaching their first birthday.

Those that survive, grow up with significant malnutrition, speech abnormalities and breathing problems, These patients, due to stigma, are normally outcast, who don't go to school and live a life of shame and isolation.

I recently joined the Operation Smile club in ISK. We meet on Mondays once every two weeks to brainstorm and plan fundraising events. Our club donates all its profits to this honorable cause.

On the 8th of September, we had a booth at the PTO picnic held in our school, We were selling 'operation smile" T-shirts (green and blue), cupcakes with smiley faces on them and brownies. We were also distributing brochures about the organization and we were raising awareness with the hope of receiving a lot of donations. Some of my friends and I went around the picnic explaining what our club is about, selling cupcakes an collecting donations.

Thanks to everyone's help and generosity, we raised about 58 000 KSH, which can pay for two surgeries, as each surgery costs about 240 dollars.