When a young man and woman fell in love and decided to get married during the course of their post-cleft lip surgery counselling sessions,Dr Sunil Kalda,a cleft-lip surgeon working with a Smile Train project in Raipur,Chhattisgarh,warned them of the likelihood of their child being afflicted with the congenital birth defect. The woman replied with quiet confidence,Smile Train hain naa. This is just one of the success stories scripted by doctors and volunteers of Smile Train working tirelessly in 160 centres across the country to reach out to over 10 lakh people suffering from untreated cleft lip and palate (CLP). But even though around 35,000 children with this condition are born in India every year,their plight received little mainstream attention until Megan Mylans Academy award-winning 39-minute documentary Smile Pinki. Smile Train,the US-based NGO that performed the free surgery on Pinki,is one such organisation. It has been working in 75 countries across the world to provide free surgery to millions of poor children with CLP. In Jharkhand,for instance,where one in every 650 children is born with CLP,about 9,000 children have benefited from the Smile Train project in the last nine years. It provides Rs 8,000 for each operation. The success stories are heartening. Take the case of Tina of Ratu village. She was born with a cleft lip,but her parents,Gopi Munda and Sukri Devi,earned a paltry Rs 80 per day and there was no way they could afford surgery for her. But last week,Tinas parents were informed about a free operation. Today,Tinas parents are thrilled to see her smile. The lack of awareness and the social stigma attached to it are considerably high in India, says Satish Kalra,the regional director of Smile Train in India. Dr Subodh Kumar Singh,the surgeon who performed the procedure on Pinki adds: There is an acute shortage of experts who can perform the surgery,especially in the rural areas of UP and Bihar.
