2022-2023 has certainly been an amazing year – we celebrated forty years of Operation Smile and committed to finding and treating 1 million patients in our next decade.
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Inspiring stories
As our director of nutrition, Charlotte Steppling has seen first-hand how lacking proper knowledge and guidance on nutrition can have…
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The more Operation Smile can foster stronger, more inclusive health systems worldwide, the better equipped these health systems will be…
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In Malawi, Operation Smile aims to find and treat all children and adults living with untreated cleft conditions, so they…
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Around 5 billion people globally, lack access to safe, affordable and timely surgical care. Low-and middle-income countries like Ghana carry…
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At Operation Smile, we believe everyone deserves access to safe medical care – access to safe surgery is not a…
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In March 2023, volunteers, staff, donors, patients and their families gathered together to celebrate the grand opening of the Bill…
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Medical volunteers from Malawi, Kenya, Ethiopia and the UK came together to provide exceptional care to over 40 children in Mzuzu, in the Northern Region of Malawi.
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Our November 2021 resident training program we conducted in Kigali took our education efforts to the next level.
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Our Transcending Borders signature initiative strives to create more resilient and inclusive health systems that serve the needs of patients with cleft conditions regardless of their immigration statuses.
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From the moment the last patient departs for home with their new smile, to the months that lead up to the next surgical programme, a patient advocate’s work is never finished.
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Nearly four decades after Dr. Bill Magee and Kathy Magee held Operation Smile’s first surgical programme in the Philippines in 1982, the founding principles of love and leadership not only remain major pillars of the organisation’s mission but also a guiding philosophy that has been passed down through generations.
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While there are thousands of people in Guatemala living with untreated cleft conditions, there is also a total of 5 million people in need of cleft care globally.
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The weeklong programme, conducted provided life support training to 73 Operation Smile medical volunteers from 11 countries across Latin America.
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In the countryside of West Bengal, India, a neighbourhood in the farming village of Amdole lies on the banks of a pond lined with trees and small brick and clay homes.
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Whether travelling from surrounding villages or distant islands, families in the Philippines seeking cleft surgeries for their children must sacrifice precious time and resources to reach Operation Smile medical programme sites.
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After more than two years of the pandemic preventing Operation Smile from providing cleft surgeries in Madagascar, an international team of medical volunteers were finally able to unite to provide patients with care in Tamatave during the last week of April 2022.
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Through the actions of dedicated and loyal volunteers who strive to make an impact, Operation Smile Malawi’s goal of increasing local surgical capacity remains at the core of its mission.
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Operation Smile revitalized its relationship with the University of Rwanda to begin hosting new surgical training rotations.
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Launching into its 20th year, Operation Smile Morocco continues to be one of the most active and respected non-profits in the country through its work of delivering safe surgery to patients with a team of more than 400 volunteers.
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Increase capacity four fold Anaesthesia is as vital to a surgical procedure as any instrument wielded by the surgeon. As…
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Seven-month-old Genesis was full of joy and energy throughout Operation Smile’s November 2019 medical programme to Quito, Ecuador
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Programme updates
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 populated 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.
Strengthening health systems in Malawi
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.
