Dear All, SMILE TRAIN is a New York based charity committed to providing free treatment to the poor children who have cleft lip and palate. Unlike other NGO's they fund local hospitals and train local doctors to treat these patients. Goa had the opportunity to host one of their first international conferences on cleft and craniofacial anomalies in 2001 (which FN covered).
To date the unit The KLES Cleft and Craniofacial Center Belgaum Karnataka (to which the undersigned is attached as a visiting cleft surgeon) has performed over 3000 FREE cleft lip and palate surgeries. The unit has apart from cleft surgeons, -plastic,pediatric, maxillofacial also has speech therapist and an orthodontist all providing FREE treatment in one center. A significant number of Goans flock to Belgaum to avail of this treatment. Recently the undersigned Dr Pascal Pinto Maxillofacial Surgeon from Goa and Dr Primo Carneiro Pediatric Surgeon Dar es Salaam Tanzania were awarded SMILE TRAIN NY scholarships to attend the Chang Gung Forum 2006 at Taiwan. SMILE TRAIN has funded over 18,000 surgeries world wide till date and operates in over 40 countries. Anyone who knows of anyone who needs life changing cleft surgery or associated treatment could contact the undersigned or dr Primo Carneiro. Dr.Pascal Pinto _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
