The Smile Train

For cleft lip and palate treatment programs in Africa. This grant will help The Smile Train enact several projects. The Smile Train plans to work with 20-30 hospitals in rural areas to provide special cleft surgery equipment and training for local medical professionals. They will also work with a partner in Uganda to provide air transportation (through the purchase of a six-passenger plane) to transport children in Uganda and adjacent countries to medical help. Over the course of the next year The Smile Train will host a second medical symposium in Nigeria to provide free training to surgeons and medical professionals. In addition, a hospital ship off the coast of Ghana will dedicate one of its operating rooms to The Smile Train. The Smile Train was founded in 1999 with the goal of making treatment of cleft lip and palate, a common birth defect, affordable and accessible to children in developing countries. It trains medical teams in developing countries to conduct the surgeries independently.