Operation Smile Philippines Fact Sheet
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Our Mission: We mobilize a world of generous hearts to heal children’s smiles and transform lives across the globe. What is Operation Smile? Operation Smile is a private, not-for-profit volunteer medical services organization and worldwide children’s medical charity headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia that provides reconstructive surgery and related health care to indigent children and young adults. Medical volunteers repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other childhood facial deformities while building public and private partnerships to provide training to health care professionals and improve local capacity in partner countries. How does Operation Smile work? Operation Smile conducts medical missions in its partner countries. Corporate sponsorships, foundations, and host local government units enable Operation Smile to mobilize volunteers, provide free reconstructive surgery and build awareness on its programs. Why does Operation Smile focus on childhood facial deformities? Operation Smile believes that when you create smiles, you change lives, and you heal humanity. The impact of facial deformity on a child is not merely physical. Children with cleft deformities experience complications such as malnutrition, respiratory ailments, ear infections, and psychological and sociological implications. Children with cleft deformities are often ridiculed, and often stop going to school. They grow up with neither the social nor the work skills to find gainful employment in 19 th Floor UCPB Corporate Offices Building Makati Avenue, Makati City, 1200 PHONE: (632) 811-9740 FAX (632) 811-9739 www.operationsmile.org FACT SHEET
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Operation Smile Philippines Fact Sheet
Transcript of Operation Smile Philippines Fact Sheet
Our Mission:
We mobilize a world of generous hearts to heal children’s smiles and transform lives across the globe.
Compassionate
Driven
Exemplary
What is Operation Smile?
Operation Smile is a private, not-for-profit volunteer medical services organization and worldwide children’s medical charity headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia that provides reconstructive surgery and related health care to indigent children and young adults. Medical volunteers repair cleft lip, cleft palate and other childhood facial deformities while building public and private partnerships to provide training to health care professionals and improve local capacity in partner countries.
How does Operation Smile work? Operation Smile conducts medical missions in its partner countries. Corporate sponsorships, foundations, and host local government units enable Operation Smile to mobilize volunteers, provide free reconstructive surgery and build awareness on its programs.
Why does Operation Smile focus on childhood facial deformities?Operation Smile believes that when you create smiles, you change lives, and you heal humanity. The impact of facial deformity on a child is not merely physical. Children with cleft deformities experience complications such as malnutrition, respiratory ailments, ear infections, and psychological and sociological implications. Children with cleft deformities are often ridiculed, and often stop going to school. They grow up with neither the social nor the work skills to find gainful employment in adulthood. A cleft condition does not only impact the child, but his family as well.
In the Philippines, it is estimated that one in every 500 babies are born every year with a cleft lip, a cleft palate or both. This translates roughly to 4,004 Filipinos out of 2.064 million born every year having this deformity. The Philippine Birth Defect Registry, a joint project of the Department of Health and the US National Institute of Health's Institute of Human Genetics, reported that cleft lips and palates are among the top 12 birth defects in the country.
19th Floor UCPB Corporate Offices Building Makati Avenue, Makati City, 1200PHONE: (632) 811-9740 FAX (632) 811-9739
www.operationsmile.org
FACT SHEET
Operation Smile Fact Sheet Page 1 www.operationsmile.org.ph
We have within our grasp the ability to change the future of a child, and by doing so, demonstrate that involvement creates change.
The congenital deformity may be corrected with a simple surgery but the cost of the procedure remains
prohibitive, especially among low-income groups where the condition is most prevalent. Operation Smile can change a child’s life by giving the gift of a surgery for only P15,000 per child. In as little as 45 minutes, one cleft lip surgery can change a child’s life forever.
Since its inception in 1982, Operation Smile Philippines has done almost 24,000 free reconstructive surgeries to underprivileged Filipino children, while Operation Smile International volunteers have provided free reconstructive surgery to over 200,000 children and young adults around the world, and thousands of health care professionals have been trained globally.
Who gave birth to Operation Smile’s advocacy on treating childhood facial deformity?
Operation Smile was founded by Dr. William P. Magee Jr., a plastic surgeon, and wife, Kathleen S. Magee, a nurse and clinical social worker, in 1982 after a medical mission in Naga City in the Philippines. Around 300 families arrived hoping to get reconstructive surgery for their children’s cleft lips and palates but the medical team then could only treat 40 children. What created an impact to the couple was not the 40 children they were able to treat but the hundreds that they had to turn down. The Magees made a promise to return to treat more children.
Back home in Norfolk, Virginia, they solicited donations of surgical equipment and supplies, raised funds, and assembled a volunteer group of doctors, nurses and technicians for another medical mission to the Philippines. What started as a small volunteer group has now become a worldwide volunteer organization. The first mission in the Philippines was the inspiration behind the now globally dynamic organization that is Operation Smile.
Which countries run Operation Smile missions?
Operation Smile conducts surgical missions in over 60 countries and currently has presence in 76 countries including the Philippines, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Kenya, Laos, Mexico, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam among others. Operation Smile also has worldwide offices in Hong Kong, London, Dublin, Brisbane, Rome, Los Angeles, and New York City that raise funds and awareness to support international programs. It has also created a global medical institution comprised of a worldwide network of teaching hospitals and university partners to help train health care professionals.
19th Floor UCPB Corporate Offices Building Makati Avenue, Makati City, 1200PHONE: (632) 811-9740 FAX (632) 811-9739
www.operationsmile.org
Operation Smile Fact Sheet Page 2 www.operationsmile.org.ph
Board of Trustees
Joaquin E. Quintos IVPresident & CEO
Prople, Inc.Chairman
Dee Anne Hora-ZobelChairman, E. Zobel Foundation, Inc.
Vice Chairman
Roberto J. ManzanoPresident & Executive Director
Donald Patrick L. LimManaging Director
MRM Worldwide
Vice President
Patricia N. ArchesPresident & CEO
McCann Worldgroup Philippines
Treasurer
Ramon A. SantiagoVice President, Corporate Affairs
San Miguel Corporation
Board Secretary
Wigbert FuntanillaJohnson & Johnson Medical Philippines
Division Director Asst. Board Secretary
Sanjiv VohraCiti Country Officer
Citigroup
Ramon Y. SyPresident & CEO
United Coconut Planters Bank
Dr. Cecilio K. PedroCEO, Lamoiyan Corporation
Napoleon L. NazarenoPresident & CEO
SMART Communications
Joselito Cembrano, M.D.Plastic Surgeon
Field Medical Director - Mindanao
Edith Y. VillanuevaPresident
Sugar & Industry Foundation, Inc.
Laurence T. Loh, M.D.Plastic Surgeon
Field Medical Director - Luzon
John Martin Miller Chairman & CEO Nestlé Philippines
Irene B. Tangco, M.D.
Plastic SurgeonMedical Advisory Council
Chief Medical Officer
19th Floor UCPB Corporate Offices Building Makati Avenue, Makati City, 1200PHONE: (632) 811-9740 FAX (632) 811-9739
www.operationsmile.org
Operation Smile Fact Sheet Page 3 www.operationsmile.org.ph
When you create smiles, you change lives and you heal humanity
