Creating Smiles Since 2000

Newsclip joined Smile Foundation at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital on Wednesday, 10 August 2016, to learn more about the difference a smile can make.

The team was welcomed into the Facing the Future Room by Hedley Lewis, Executive Director of Finance and Fundraising, Toni Jabour, Marketing Manager and Belinda Long, Gauteng coordinator. This brightly painted room with children’s artwork, soft toys and educational games, provides a happy escape for the patients in their care. A place where children can just be children.

The Facing the Future room is also where children and their parents learn about and are prepared for the upcoming reconstructive procedure. Lewis explained the importance of this in alleviating any distress or panic at the time of the surgery.

Smile Foundation supports the Departments of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery who provide life-changing operations to children with facial conditions.  Playing a very prominent role, the foundation is involved in the entire process and aids multiple Academic Hospitals nationwide by supplying any of the lacking resources, from additional nurses to medical equipment within the Departments of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

In addition to this, Smile Foundation provides a parenting unit at C.M.J.A.H. where mothers who have travelled from outside of Johannesburg are able to safely stay, free of charge.

Understanding the importance of creating awareness, Smile Foundation’s powerful new campaign does just that. The ‘One Call’ campaign aims to inform people around South Africa that help is only a call away. A single call can secure a life changing operation for any child aged between 0-18 years and give them a smile.

Smile Foundation was borne from a personal request by Mr Nelson Mandela to help Thando Manyathi to smile. Since the year 2000, more than two thousand children’s lives have been changed.

Newsclip is a proud sponsor of the Smile Foundation and has provided pro bono media monitoring services for the last 5 years.

For more information about Smile Foundation, visit http://www.smilefoundationsa.org/.

If you know a child in need of facial reconstructive surgery, call 0861276453.