Making smiles in Madagascar

Operation Smile. Madagascar Mission 2011. from Zute Lightfoot on Vimeo.
(Go to this link if it does not want to play: Operation Smile Madagascar Mission)

A friend of mine does volunteer work every year for Operation Smile. She helps with the filing of each and every case of a child that gets a smile being made during such a mission.
(See last year's guest post by her: Smiles for Kinshasha, by Karin D'Orville.)

It must be one of the most gratifying ways of doing volunteer work. Smiles are being "made" - children's faces and lives are changed in the time span of a day.
I can only imagine that it changes the whole family's lives who "suffers" with the child as well.

Karin notified me of the slideshow above which is about this year's  Mission to Madagascar. It gives a very insightful look into the way the missions operates and how it changes the lives of the children.

"Operation Smile provides free surgery to repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities for children around the globe. Operation Smile was in Madagascar for 10 days, the team was made up of 70 medical professionals from around the world all of whom had volunteered their time."

I cringed when they showed the people that gets turned away...
To wait for another year for a change to be able to have that most important operation!
That must be so frustrating!


I think Operation Smile is doing a wonderful job!

Thanks to all the volunteers and monetary contributors!