Rajasthan Royals supports Operation Smile in Rajasthan
Operation Smile India is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing free life-changing surgeries to those born with cleft and other facial deformities. Every year in India, 35,000 children are born with cleft lip and cleft palate deformities. These children suffer from physical difficulties like eating, drinking, breathing and deformed speech. During their growing years the visual disfigurement subjects these children to ridicule, teasing and humiliation from peers. Cleft children ultimately drop out of school, avoid playing with other kids and cannot lead the normal life of a child owing to ostracism and low self-esteem. Due to low awareness and lack of education a lot of people associate various myths and superstitious beliefs like eclipse, curse etc. as the cause of cleft. These challenges further lead to personal, social and psychological issues like education, career, and even marriage and low self-esteem.
Operation Smile India provides care through medical missions and Comprehensive Cleft Care Centers. On missions, teams of medical volunteers travel to various sites and work with local hospitals and perform surgeries. Comprehensive Cleft Care Centers are permanent facilities where treatment is provided round the year. At operation Smile India highest priority is given to medical safety and quality of care. Operation Smile International Standard of Care a set of stringent quality protocols is followed to ensures that all our patients are treated with the best possible care in a safe medical environment. Along with providing quality cleft care, Operation Smile India is also focused on developing sustainable local healthcare system through its Education Programs for medical professionals. This includes various international certification courses in advanced life support skills and fellowship programs with international institutions.
Since 2002 Operation Smile India has run projects across 16 sites (Aurangabad, Bolpur, Bhavnagar, Deesa, Dharamsala, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Manipal, Mumbai, Rajkot, Shantiniketan, Vijayawada) all over India, and has restored the smiles of more than 9,500 children and their families. Our Education programs have facilitated free training courses to more than 750 healthcare workers in the country.
Our mission is to make India cleft-free! For more information please visit www.operationsmile.org.in