Program Funding
Smile Train funds hundreds of partners and programs throughout the world that help children in need receive cleft treatment their families could otherwise never afford.
Types of Funding
Becoming a Partner
All our partners are united by a common goal: helping children who have no place else to turn. If this is your goal too, we'd like to partner with you. Contact us at info@smiletrainindia.org for more information.
Treatment Partnerships
Smile Train provides financial support for treating clefts, empowering local health systems and medical providers in developing countries to treat children in their communities who would not otherwise be able to afford this life-changing surgery.
Comprehensive Treatment
Smile Train’s vision is to ensure every child with a cleft can lead a full and productive life. Our comprehensive treatment funding covers essential services such as specialized nutrition, speech therapy, dentistry, and orthodontic treatments for people with clefts.
Education and Training
Smile Train is committed to educating and training community health workers in cleft care. Our financial support ensures that healthcare professionals in even the most low-resource areas have access to first-rate educational opportunities, helping to improve the proficiency, safety, and quality of care they provide.
Equipment
Equipment Funding is one of the primary means through which Smile Train improves the quality of cleft care services around the world while increasing the number of children we help. They provide funding for everything from cleft sets to pulse oximeters to the vans that help transport patients to treatment and allow medical professionals to expand their reach.
Patient Logistics
This program targets patients whose families could never make it to the hospital for treatment without additional financial support for expenses such as the cost of transportation to and from the hospital and food and shelter once there.
Awareness
This type of funding supports campaigns to educate people about clefts and treatment options, reducing stigma and ensuring people in need can reach our partner hospitals.
Our Funding Principles
We Do:
- Focus exclusively on programs related to cleft lips and palates.
- Focus on the low- and middle-income countries with the highest incidence of clefts.
- Support programs that provide free treatment for children whose families could not otherwise afford it.
- Support cleft team members and hospitals that need financial assistance.
- Leverage our support by cost-sharing with our partners.
- Foster self-sufficiency in our partners.
- Closely monitor and manage all of our programs and partners.
- Require all of our partners to adhere to the highest standards of safety and quality.
We Don't:
- Pay for treatment for children whose families can afford it.
- Replace funding, or pay for surgeries that other organizations will pay for (government, insurance, charities, etc.).
- Support organizations that do not provide safe and high-quality treatment.