Operation Smile believes that when you create smiles, you change lives, and you heal humanity. The impact of facial deformity on a child is not merely physical.  Children with cleft deformities experience complications such as malnutrition, respiratory ailments, ear infections, and psychological and sociological implications.  Children with cleft deformities are often ridiculed, and often stop going to school. They grow up with neither the social nor the work skills to find gainful employment in adulthood.  A cleft condition does not only impact the child, but his family as well. 

In the Philippines, it is estimated that one in every 500 babies are born every year with a cleft lip, a cleft palate or both. This translates roughly to 4,004 Filipinos out of 2.064 million born every year having this deformity.

The congenital deformity may be corrected with a simple surgery but the cost of the procedure remains prohibitive, especially among low-income groups where the condition is most prevalent. Operation Smile can change a child’s life by giving the gift of a surgery for only P15,000 per child. In as little as 45 minutes, one cleft lip surgery can change a child’s life forever.