Helping Children Smile

Helping Children Smile Inc. is a voluntary organisation based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

We provide reconstructive cleft lip and cleft palate surgery for Filipino children, sometimes adults, without any cost to the recipient and their family. This treatment is not available to indigent people in the Philippines due to poverty and lack of access to specialist surgery.

We strive to send a team of qualified plastic surgeons, anaesthetists and registered nurses to the Philippines, in the dry season for a two week period, once a year. The team is responsible for pre-operative assessment, preparation and intra-operative care, as well as post-operative care including wound management.

The surgery we provide does more than repair the children’s physical problem. These children would otherwise have limited opportunities to attend school and as adults, of finding work. After their surgery they can look forward to a normal life.

We help to restore their smiles in more ways than one!

Our work is accomplished on a voluntary basis and receives no direct funding from the Australian or Philippine governments. We rely on proceeds from fundraising activities and donations to cover travel costs, accommodation and surgical equipment. Team members give their time and expertise at no cost.

Helping Children Smile has now helped restore the smiles of well over 1000 children since our first medical mission in 1996.

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CASE STUDY

Jenica had a bilateral cleft lip with an excoriated section on the lip tissue which oozed blood. She always wore a mask when in public. Thanks to surgery provided by Helping Children Smile INC, Jenica now no longer wears a mask in public, Jenica wears a beautiful smile.

Jenica at the post operative check-up clinic with her mum and Kate Rogers one of the nurses from Helping Children Smile.