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Our stories from around the world highlight the courage of patients and their families, the dedication of our volunteers and staff, and the generosity of supporters like you.
Holding their newborn baby for the first time is often one of the most joyous moments a parent can experience. But for Ani and her husband, Roberto, seeing their son, Alex, brought feelings of fear and despair.
The sun was just peaking over the horizon as sweat ran down my arms and dripped onto the clean and empty streets of Nay Pyi Taw. I was still trying to adjust to the time zone and the heat in Myanmar.
As soon as Iris gets off the bus and, together with her mother, moves through the crowds of people at a bus station in Managua, Nicaragua, she hides.
Walking behind her mother, she holds one hand on her mother’s shoulder and the other covers her mouth. Her eyes are locked on her mother’s back, as if she doesn’t want to meet the eyes of any of the strangers staring at her.
Cintia didn’t understand what was wrong with her daughter, Britany, when she was born.
Her daughter was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate, conditions she had never seen or heard of before.
Along a dusty roadside in the state of Ceará in northern Brazil, Antonia sips a cold drink on a hot day at the local coconut stand with her father and sister.
Find out how our surgical programmes are strengthening local health systems and training the next generation of medical leaders.
Training anaesthetists in Rwanda
Anaesthesia is vital to the delivery of safe surgery, but there is a dramatic shortage of trained anaesthetists in Rwanda. In this densely popualated country, 11.9 million people are served by just 15 anaesthetists and anaesthesiologists.
Dr Paulin Banguti is working to fill this void – he’s director of the post-graduate anaesthesia programme at the University of Rwanda. During the March 2016 Operation Smile surgical training rotation at Rwinkwavu District Hospital, he led a group of anaesthesia residents to observe and learn from volunteer anaesthesiologists from around the world.
To enable Operation Smile to serve and treat more people living with cleft conditions, we focus on increasing the surgical capacity of low-and middle-income countries like Malawi so that cleft care for local people can continue, even after a surgical programme ends.
Operation Smile Malawi has worked to encourage and educate local surgeons, doctors and nurses, and now has nearly 50 percent of its medical volunteers from Malawi. Surgical training rotations train and empower local surgeons to help their own communities and strengthen health systems for the future.
