Operation Smile Everyone Deserves to Smile

Every third minute. That is how often a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate is born. This means that one in every 700 babies born will be born with a cleft lip or palate. This congenital birth defect causes not only major difficulties with speaking, but also with breathing, eating and drinking. Children born with a cleft suffer twice the odds of dying before the age of one, and one out of ten children in less developed countries die due to it. Operation Smile, a non-profit, international health organisation aims to help children all around the world grow up with the ability to smile.