Smile Train set up its Indian operations a few months ago in New Delhi. It has already sponsored over 500 surgeries. Basically, Smile Train is an international children's charity and medical education organisation. It was founded just two years ago and helps millions suffering from cleft lips and palates by providing free training to doctors, conducting research on the subject, and, of course, conducting free surgery. It is a personal initiative of Mr Charles B Wang, chairman of Computer Associates International.

Mr Wang visited doctors and patients at their Chennai centre and said that "children throughout India, and around the world, are living every day of their lives in anguish because of a readily treatable medical condition." Mr Wang said every success of The Smile Train only encouraged the NGO to redouble its efforts.

In fact, the NGO recently announced the formation of strategic, three-year training and support partnerships with five Indian medical organisations. The five partnerships are with A B Shetty Memorial Institute for Dental Sciences in Karnataka, the Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute in Tamil Nadu, the Charles Pinto Centre for Cleft Lip and Palate in Kerala, SHARE Medical Centre in Andhra Pradesh, and Mumbai's Impact India Foundation. These organisations will provide more than 12,000 children with new smiles and "new outlooks on life". This marks yet another extension of Smile Train's all-out effort to remove cleft lip and palate disorders that bring untold physical and emotional devastation on millions of children worldwide. By empowering India's in-country medical professionals to bring healing to children suffering from these problems that can be corrected, The Smile Train provides the opportunity for full, productive and happy lives to be led by children who would have otherwise beenfaced with continuous discomfort apart from social isolation.

With financial support from Smile Train, the Tamil Nadu collaborating institute plans to significantly step up the number of cleft reconstructive surgeries performed at its hospital. And this without compromising its focus on safety and quality, says Ms Radha Venkatachalam, CEO of Sri Ramchandra Medical College and Research Institute. "The problem of cleft lips and palates in our country is huge and resources are always short. The assistance we receive from The Smile Train will bridge this gap," she states.

Unlike traditional non-profit cleft organisations that temporarily loan American medical teams to developing countries to perform surgeries, Smile Train empowers local surgeons and medical professionals to carry out the surgeries themselves. These top local medical teams can then leverage the modern training and support provided by Smile Train to give local children the exact surgical procedures they need.

"We are very happy that that we can now expand our efforts," says Dr Krishna Sham Rao of the A B Shetty Memorial Institute in Karnataka. "We have hundreds of children on our waiting list who desperately need the life-changing procedures that Smile Train offers them."

Neurology expert Professor U S Nayak says that nearly 20,000 children with cleft lips and palates are born in India each year. Smile Train assesses double that number. Mr Satish Kalra, managing director of Smile Train India, says, "The children are too small to understand what has hit them, but it is so gratifying to see the smiles on the faces of their parents. It is particularly sad to see them suffering in this manner because unlike many other birth disorders, this condition is completely curable."

The NGO is funded in large part by Mr Wang, although other non-government organisations do chip in.