Blog: 253 Please give A ‘SMILE’ to ‘SMILETRAIN’ asap

You might be thinking: ‘Who are SMILETRAIN & why should I give them a smile?’.

SMILETRAIN is a charity that funds operations & appointments for children who have clefts.

They pay for these things in countries that aren’t as lucky as us in here in the UK are = because we get free treatment through the NHS.

Recently I received a hello & thank you letter from SMILETRAIN, for donating a small amount of money to them. I say ‘small’ because all I can afford to donate is £15.00 a month. This money helps to provide vital training & equipment for local medical teams. I don’t like that I can only afford to donate this small amount, but every penny counts – don’t you think?

In the letter to me, it told me about a baby in India called Spandana, who was born with a cleft lip. Shortly after Spandana’s first birthday a doctor completed life changing surgery at SDM College of Dental Sciences & Hospital, at no cost to his family. The free treatment gave this little boy an amazing new start to life!

Because Spandana was still an infant until he had an operation on his cleft, he was spared the isolation & ridicule that so many children with clefts must endure. Where he lives children are often excluded, considered unlucky to be around or even shunned because villagers do not understand that babies with clefts are not cursed, they deserve to live full & happy lives.

By donating to SMILETRAIN, kids like Spandana can have free operations with orthodontics, nutrition support, speech therapy and whatever they need to grow up healthily.

To find out more about this wonderful charity that are making children’s lives better, to see photos of children who’ve had the operation to remove their cleft, you can visit: www.smiletrain.org.uk

If you have to go without a few bags of crips, chocolates or a drink (of alcohol), please do, so you can afford to donate a few quid every month, or a one-off donation. I think donating monthly is important, because this problem isn’t going away any time soon, or ever. Every 3 minutes another baby is born with a cleft – they are struggling to breath. Please donate if you care & you can.