Smile Train is Curing Kids With Cleft Lips: One Even has an Oscar!

These adults and children had no idea their cleft lips could be cured, before Smile Train came along.

Imagine a life wasted on something not of your own doing.

A physical anomaly that has the potential to scar you for life.

That would pretty much sum up little Pinki Sonkar’s existence. Born in Mirzapur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh into a life of extreme poverty, she also suffered shame and isolation due to a cleft lip deformity. She had no friends, the kids teased her and she was not allowed to attend school.

At this point, Smile Train, the world’s largest international NGO dedicated to cleft lip and palate surgeries, intervened. She underwent a cleft surgery by Dr Subodh Kumar Singh and her transformation was so brilliant, American documentary film maker Megan Mylan made a 39-minute film, Smile Pinki, on her life before, during and after the surgery.

This film went on to win an Oscar in the ‘Best Documentary Short’ category and Pinki travelled to Hollywood to attend the LA ceremony.

“Andy Murray Said ‘Pinki is my Lucky Charm!’”

I became the first girl child to flip the coin at the Wimbledon Men’s Finals in 2013 when Smile Train was selected as the charity of choice. Andy Murray even said, ‘Pinki is my lucky charm!’

Pinki Sonkar

How Smile Train is Helping Kids With Cleft Lips Everywhere

Started in 1999 by Charles B Wang – who also co-founded Computer Associates – Smile Train has achieved results which are totally measurable: without the need for any elaborate medical set up, clefts can be cured with 45 minutes of surgery! Also, a child gets a chance to go to school, learn a trade, get a job, raise a family...

Working across 80 countries, the charity in 2015 completed 1 million surgeries worldwide and 450,000 surgeries in India.

We are working with 170 hospitals in 110 towns across the country. From Siliguri to Chennai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Srinagar – our partner hospitals are present in interiors such as Padar (MP), Burdwan (WB) and places near Nagpur (Maharashtra). We partner with local hospitals after a strict accredited program. The most trustworthy bit is, we fund all the costs regarding a surgery – even the travel of the patients from remote areas to the hospital.

Mamta Carroll, vice president and regional director, South Asia, Smile Train

To enable faster turnarounds, the organisation has partnered with the governments of Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana.

It has also tied up with the Border Security Force and anganwadi workers, which helps it reach out to far flung areas of the country.

From a Life of Public Scorn to Freedom

It isn’t just children; many adults have benefited too.

Sunder Pal, 35, was born with a cleft palate in Balhera, Haryana. The villagers threw derogatory taunts such as ‘khandu’ (incomplete) at him. After he got married, he had five children – three of whom were born with cleft. The family was labelled as one of ‘khandus’ with the children bearing public scorn as much as their parents.

I got corrective surgery done for my two children. The doctor at Soni Burns and Plastic Surgery Center, Panipat, convinced me to get mine done as well. The long journey by foot, bus and a three-wheeler to the hospital was worth it when I see my kids play with other children today....

Sunder Pal

That said, there are more than 10 lakh untreated cases of cleft in the country, and Smile Train, accredited with the ministry of corporate affairs, is looking at CSR support to scale up its Indian operations. As Dr Hiren Bhatt, project director, Smile Train at K G Patel Children Hospital, Vadodara, says, “Taking holistic care of children born with cleft lip and palate deformities is a huge challenge. It includes not just the surgeries but also post-operative care such as speech therapy and orthodontics. Through well planned interventions, Smile Train India has been able to empower many Indian hospitals.”

At the risk of repeating an overworked cliche, there are probably few places that are as true to their name as Smile Train.

(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)