Well what a week its been. We love coming here to help the children & the Smile for Me Team have certainly helped many children & their families this week.

The team has been working hard all week from the initial days setting up the theatres at ACE Medical. We spent Friday, Saturday & Sunday getting organised & making sure we had all the equipment & stock. It was great to catch up with our Filipino & American friends. On Sunday we started to meet all the families & screen the children. There were a few familiar faces so it was great to catch up & see how they had been going. There were also some new children & their families that stole our hearts.

Again we heard some heart breaking stories from some of the children & their families like Mica. Mica is 8 years old & told us how he had stopped going to school because of the relentless bullying. Following the procedure he & his family were so excited & he was looking forward o going back to school.

Rhiannly was another beautiful girl who had faced many challenges. Her mother had died when she was young & her father had abandoned her. She was living with family who were looking after her. She had a cleft from her eye towards her lip & had not been able to close her eye. The result from her surgery was amazing & will be life changing for her.

This our youngest child was 4 months old with a cleft lip repair. While our oldest this year was a cleft palate repair who was 27 years old. We did lots cleft palates this year, and 60% of our patients aged under 5 years old.

As always we couldn’t do this without the generous donations from our supporters so I would like to say thanks on behalf of our team. I also need to thank our partners in this each is integral to making this outreach work. AMRO are our team on the ground so to speak. This would not be possible without their local knowledge & support. Our American surgeons from Operation restore Hope USA do beautiful work & we value their skills & knowledge.

ACE Medical have again welcomed us back & their staff have been invaluable in helping our team. Prince of Wales Private Hospital has been a long standing partner that words can’t express how much we appreciate their support. St Lukes Private Hospital are also now a proud supporter of the team & we welcome their ongoing support of the team

I also want to thank our Smile for Me team. You are all amazing.