 | |
| Formation | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(3) nonprofit |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, United States |
| Susannah Schaefer | |
| Website | smiletrain |
Smile Train is a nonprofit organization and charity providing corrective surgery for children with cleft lips and palates. [1] Headquartered in New York City and founded in 1999, Smile Train provides free corrective cleft surgery in 87 countries, [2] training local doctors and providing hospital funding for the procedures. [2]
Smile Train was created in 1998 by Brian Mullaney and Charles Wang, who had previously worked with Operation Smile, another charity focused on correcting cleft lips and palates. [3] They felt the most efficient way to provide cleft surgery was to train and support local doctors rather than to fly in Western doctors to provide surgeries in poor, developing countries. [3] [4] Local doctors would also be able to provide care year-round rather than the limited engagements of the "mission-based" model. [3] [4] In 1999, Smile Train approached Court B. Cutting of New York University's Virtual Research Laboratory to create training videos, which could be used to train local doctors on how to perform advanced cleft surgery techniques. [5] The 3D models used in the videos were based on the CT scan of two Chinese patients. [6] Smile Train distributes the DVDs to local doctors worldwide. [4] [5] The DVDs are available in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. [7]
In 1999, Smile Train began providing corrective surgeries in China. [2] The charity worked with the then-American and Chinese presidents, George H. W. Bush and Jiang Zemin, in the planning of Smile Train's first operation in China. [8] [ citation needed ]
Smile Train began working in India in 2000. [9] In 2011, Aishwarya Rai, a Bollywood actress and former Miss World, became Smile Train's first goodwill ambassador. [10]
In a 2008 New York Times article, economist Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame indicated that the organization's model and its technological innovations "likely make Smile Train one of the most productive charities, dollar for deed, in the world." [11]
In 2009, the documentary Smile Pinki , which was sponsored by Smile Train and directed by Megan Mylan, won the 2008 Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject). [12] The film shows the story of a poor girl in rural India whose life is transformed when she receives free surgery to correct her cleft lip.
Smile Train worked with the Scottish charity KidsOR to revamp 30 operating theatres in Africa. This encompassed three in Nigeria, including in Kano, revamping an operating theatre there in the city's Armed Forces Specialist Hospital in 2022. [13]
In 2008, CharityWatch criticized then-president Brian Mullaney's $420,209 salary and questioned the 2007 company's tax form, which said Mullaney's salary came from temporary restricted funds designed to go toward overhead. [14] In 2009, Givewell could not assess the impact of Smile Train's activities based on the charity's 2008 tax form and other publicly accessible information. [15] Mullaney departed the charity in 2012. [16]
A cleft lip contains an opening in the upper lip that may extend into the nose. The opening may be on one side, both sides, or in the middle. A cleft palate occurs when the palate contains an opening into the nose. The term orofacial cleft refers to either condition or to both occurring together. These disorders can result in feeding problems, speech problems, hearing problems, and frequent ear infections. Less than half the time the condition is associated with other disorders.
Steven David Levitt is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels. Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in the field of crime, and is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago as well as the Faculty Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change at the University of Chicago which incubates the Data Science for Everyone coalition. He was co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press until December 2007. In 2009, Levitt co-founded TGG Group, a business and philanthropy consulting company. He was chosen as one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Levitt their fourth favorite living economist under the age of 60, after Paul Krugman, Greg Mankiw and Daron Acemoglu.
Orthognathic surgery, also known as corrective jaw surgery or simply jaw surgery, is surgery designed to correct conditions of the jaw and lower face related to structure, growth, airway issues including sleep apnea, TMJ disorders, malocclusion problems primarily arising from skeletal disharmonies, and other orthodontic dental bite problems that cannot be treated easily with braces, as well as the broad range of facial imbalances, disharmonies, asymmetries, and malproportions where correction may be considered to improve facial aesthetics and self-esteem.
Shriners Children's is a network of non-profit medical facilities across North America. Children with orthopaedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate are eligible for care and receive all services in a family-centered environment, regardless of the patients' ability to pay. Care for children is usually provided until age 18, although in some cases, it may be extended to age 21.
Operation Smile is a nonprofit medical service organization founded in 1982 by William P. Magee Jr. and his wife Kathleen (Kathy) S. Magee. It is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Mackay Memorial Hospital, established on 26 December 1912, is one of the largest medical centers in Taiwan. It is a private Christian hospital in Zhongshan District, Taipei, Taiwan, mostly associated with George Leslie Mackay, the first modern missionary to northern Taiwan. The hospital is deeply rooted in the Presbyterian tradition and under the spiritual guidance of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan.
Save a Child's Heart (SACH) is an Israeli humanitarian organisation providing cardiac healthcare to children worldwide. SACH was founded in 1995 and is based at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Smile Foundation of Bali is a non-profit organisation in Bali that helps people with craniofacial disabilities obtain health care. Senyum means smile in Indonesian and yayasan means 'foundation' or 'institute'.
Joanna Elizabeth Jepson is a British Anglican priest and campaigner. She is most notable for instigating a legal challenge to the late abortion of a 28-week-old foetus in 2001. The reasons given for the termination were associated with the fetus having a cleft lip and palate – grounds which Jepson argued did not constitute "a serious handicap" under the terms of the 1967 UK Abortion Act.
Smile Angel Foundation is a Beijing-based charity founded in 2006 by Li Yapeng and Faye Wong to help Chinese children born with clefts. It is affiliated with the Red Cross Society of China. The foundation is named after the couple's daughter, Li Yan, who was born in the same year with severe clefts and underwent corrective surgery in the United States.
Smile Pinki is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Megan Mylan which won the 81st Academy Award for Best Documentary. The film depicts the story of Pinki and Ghutaru, two children in rural India who receive corrective surgery for cleft lips.
S. M. Balaji is a dental, oral, and maxillofacial surgeon from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, who specializes in repair of cleft palate, rhinoplasty, ear reconstruction, jaw reconstruction, facial asymmetry correction, dental implantology, maxillofacial surgery and Craniofacial surgery. He is an alumni of Annamalai University.
Maxillary hypoplasia, or maxillary deficiency, is an underdevelopment of the bones of the upper jaw. It is associated with Crouzon syndrome, Angelman syndrome, as well as Fetal alcohol syndrome. It can also be associated with Cleft lip and cleft palate. Some people could develop it due to poor dental extractions.
In the Philippines, the Kapampangan Development Foundation (KDF) is an organization of Kapampangans living outside the region. It was founded in 1987 by 35 people who were inspired by President Corazon Aquino; in 2012, 11 of its founders remained. The KDF has created a rural-industrialization program known as RICH and has provided social and health services to poor residents of Pampanga through its HELP program, with assistance from international and non-governmental organizations and government agencies.
Operation Smile China Medical Mission (OSCMM) is a non-profit organisation that provides reconstructive surgery for the underprivileged children with cleft lips and / or palates in China.
BioDigital is a New York-based biomedical visualization company that is often referred to as being "Google Earth for the Human Body". BioDigital offers an interactive, 3D software platform that enables individuals and businesses to explore and visualize health information. Their flagship product, the BioDigital Human, is a "searchable, customizable map of the human body".
The Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal is a registered charity in the UK, that exists to provide free facial surgery for poor children and young adults in Pakistan. The OPSA team operate on facial abnormalities including cleft lip and palate.
Alliance for Smiles (AfS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 in San Francisco. They provide free surgical repairs for cleft lip and cleft palate, with missions mostly in the continents of Asia and Africa. They also work to develop treatment centers where continuous follow-up care can be provided.
Hirji Sorab Adenwalla was an Indian missionary who joined the Jubilee Mission in Kerala, India, as a surgeon. Adenwalla turned what was originally a small dispensary into a 1500-bedded medical college and research institute called the Jubilee Mission Medical College. Adenwalla specialized in cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries, providing treatment at low or no cost to more than 21,000 patients. Adenwalla contributed several new techniques to the cleft lip surgery, such as a method to avoid a vermillion notch, a protocol for cleft lip nose correction in unilateral cleft lips, and a procedure for septal repositioning.
Global Smile Foundation (GSF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Norwood, Massachusetts, U.S. As stated on their website, their mission is to provide comprehensive cleft care for patients in underserved areas throughout the world and to advance the level of cleft care provided globally. In addition to providing surgery and comprehensive care for cleft lip and/or palate, they provide education and training for cleft providers outside of the U.S.