As part of the Moodie Davitt Virtual Travel Retail Expo’s support for cleft charity Smile Train, we are running a regular series that highlights the organisation’s life-changing work.
As reported, The Moodie Davitt Report is to fund a cleft operation through Smile Train for every paid exhibitor at the pioneering event.
Smile Train has supported over 1.5 million cleft surgeries since 1999. Every five minutes Smile Train-supported cleft treatment helps a child in need. Some 200,000 babies are born every year with cleft lips and/or palates. US$250 funds the cost of the 45-minute cleft surgery that transforms the life of a child – and that of his or her family. |
The Strength of a Smile
Let us introduce you to Monica, a Colombian teenager who, despite a family tragedy and bullying, continues to wear a big smile.
Monica’s mother Flor was living in her mother’s house with her husband, Diego, and their two children when she learned she was pregnant with her third child. She had already had several ultrasounds and expected another healthy birth.
But when the doctors rushed her newborn baby away before Flor could even see her because of something they called a cleft, she was distressed.
An hour passed before Flor was allowed to hold her new daughter, who was named Monica.
“It was so unexpected,” Flor recalled. “A terrible shock. I’d never seen a cleft before and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to feed her and the doctors didn’t explain. They told me to use a syringe, but it didn’t work. Monica cried with hunger day and night.”
Fortunately, Flor’s sister taught orthodontics at a university in nearby Bogotá. She referred her eight-day-old niece to a doctor who gave her a brace that allowed her to bottle-feed without choking.
Flor later signed Monica up for surgery through a mission-based cleft organisation that happened to be in Colombia at the time. Though the whole family was grateful Monica was able to get the surgery she needed, it was clear to them that she would still need additional surgeries, speech therapy and orthodontics. But the doctors who had cared for her were already long gone.
Monica’s doctor recommended FISULAB, a centre in Bogotá offering comprehensive cleft care. The centre was based near Monica’s home and its services were free, thanks to a partnership with Smile Train.
FISULAB was able to provide Monica with the follow-up surgeries as she needed them, in addition to continuing speech therapy and psychological and emotional counselling.
When Monica was ten, her family moved out of Flor’s mother’s home into government housing in Quinchinchirá, outside Bogotá. They were settling in and saving money for needed renovations when Diego was stabbed and killed.
Though Monica had already been receiving psychosocial counselling from FISULAB before this tragedy, the FISULAB staff’s unyielding care became an indispensable part of her healing process.
“I like going to FISULAB because everyone there is very nice to me and I feel like they’re doing their best to help me and the other children,” she said.
FISULAB also supported Monica when she was threatened by a classmate, which was especially traumatic after her father’s murder. “The people at FISULAB helped me to work it out and now I feel confident to go to school again.”
FISULAB has helped Monica channel her grief and live positively. She has grown into a hard-working, responsible teenager who looks after her mother. At school, she helps her teacher keep order as the class supervisor. She loves learning English, studying with her two best friends, and playing basketball. Monica has her sights set on becoming a gym teacher.
[Make the investment of a lifetime. Just US$21/month is all it takes to sponsor life-changing cleft surgery for one more child every year. Visit smiletrain.org to make a gift today.]
