How to help

The agencies I worked for were: Smile Train based in New York. It recently completed one million cleft operations worldwide. By July/August, Smile Train in Africa will have attended to 100,000 cleft patients. See smiletrain.org for more stories, how to get involved or to donate. As little as US$ 250 gets one child an operation. Cleft Kinderhilfe in Germany (spaltkinder. org) assists in cleft lip and palate operations in India, Pakistan and Kenya. Cleft Kinderhilfe has also opted to assist in funding the operations that Shirleen (see main story) needs. Together with a small foundation I have established for burns victims, we have actioned five operations which will take place in Kenyatta National Hospital. She will have her lips, hairline, hand, ear, eye and nose operated on. It will never fix the unfixable. But she’ll be able to write, breathe more easily, hear better and her lips will look less clown- like.