Protect 500 Cleft Kids from Covid-19

It is estimated that 1 in 700 children in India is born with this Cleft deformity. Every year around 35,000 infants are born with this painful yet correctable condition.

1 in 10 such infant born with cleft don’t make it to 1^st birthday due to acute malnutrition and other medical complications. We at Mission Smile are committed to change 3500 such lives annually and seek the partial support and funding to reach this target.

Cleft deformities deprive children of a life of dignity and opportunity. Despite cleft being a medical condition; it has serious social and emotional implications in the life of the concerned child. There have been known cases of abandoning, disowning, selling, isolation and ostracisation of children with cleft. Moreover, there are cases of school dropouts because of ridicule or lack of friends mingling with them or any other reasons that might cause mental stress and trauma preventing cleft children from attending schools. This ultimately results in their ending up unemployed or taking up menial jobs in the future.

Though cleft is a corrective deformity, yet access to quality care and treatment is very low. Without adequate treatment, these children struggle to speak, eat, and participate in society. Trapped within their own bodies, they miss education and livelihood opportunities, and remain in the periphery of their society, deprived of basic human dignity.

On the positive side this is a deformity which has a proven solution, a solution which can take as little as a 45-minute surgical procedure at the right facility with trained medical personnel.

One such story of these 3 sibling which were operated succesfully in our Medical Mission in Shillong, India