Every year, 35,000 children in India are born with clefts – a gap in the upper lip and/or palate. Though completely treatable, less than half get the treatment they desperately need – only because they are too poor.

Without corrective surgery, these children are condemned to a lifetime of isolation and suffering. Taunted and tormented for their disfigurement, they cannot attend school, hold a regular job or get married. Many are even abandoned or killed at birth.

The irony is that a cleft can be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that could take as little as 45 minutes and cost as little as Rs. 8,000.

That’s where The Smile Train comes in. We are the world’s largest cleft lip and palate charity. Our overriding goal is make safe and quality treatment of cleft lip and palate accessible to the millions who cannot afford it.

Since 2000, The Smile Train has sponsored over 110,000 safe, quality surgeries across India, totally free of cost.

The Smile Train is unique because we work only with local doctors – training, helping and empowering them to become self-sufficient.

There are an estimated 10 lakh untreated cases of clefts in India. The goal of the Smile Train is this: To continue providing cleft surgeries across India – on an ever increasing scale – until we have completely eradicated the problem of clefts.