Operation Smile Madagascar: Unconditional Love
15 images Created 19 Mar 2020
Clara was born with a severe cleft lip and cleft palate. In their tiny village in the highlands of Madagascar the social stigma became too much for Clara’s mother to bear and she abandoned her family, she wanted to leave with her younger son, who wasn’t born with a cleft. Clara’s father, Dede, who accepted and loved Clara unconditionally, refused. And so Clara’s mother walked away from her family, and they haven’t heard from her since.
We first meet Clara, then 8 years old, and Dede at a local health clinic in a tiny village on a winding road that links the nearby town of Mandoto with the closest big city, Antsirabe. To reach the clinic from their village, they have to walk barefoot for more than two hours. This is where they first saw the posters some time ago – a medical team from Operation Smile was coming to Antsirabe to provide children free surgery. They saw the before and after photos and realised there was a solution within reach.
“When Clara goes to school,” Dede says, dejected. “The children tease her because she can’t make herself understood. So she avoids going outside and doesn’t attend school so often.”
One week later, Clara and Dede board a bus, paid for by Operation Smile, that takes them to the medical mission site in Antsirabe. At the Operation Smile patient shelter, more than 300 patients and caregivers have gathered to attend the next day’s health screenings, which determine who will be able to receive surgery during the medical mission.
The following day, Clara is carefully examined by Operation Smile medical volunteers and is deemed healthy enough to receive cleft lip surgery, joining the more than 160 children that would receive surgery that week. Operation Smile volunteer cleft surgeon Dr. Petra Peterson of Sweden has carefully planned Clara’s procedure. Clara’s bilateral cleft lip is broad and also affects her nose. With a pen, Petra marks the skin with small dots. Then, the operation to carefully stitch her lip together, layer by layer, can begin. It’s like a puzzle – all the pieces are there, but they need to be fit together just right.
Eight months later, we meet Clara again at the local health clinic. This time, 9-year-old carries herself with a newfound sense of confidence – she doesn’t look down or avoid eye contact. We then take the long walk with her to her school – over hills, rice paddies and rivers. When we arrive, she runs ahead of us, eager to show us to her friends.
They’re now preparing to go back to the hospital in Antsirabe for Clara’s palate surgery.
We first meet Clara, then 8 years old, and Dede at a local health clinic in a tiny village on a winding road that links the nearby town of Mandoto with the closest big city, Antsirabe. To reach the clinic from their village, they have to walk barefoot for more than two hours. This is where they first saw the posters some time ago – a medical team from Operation Smile was coming to Antsirabe to provide children free surgery. They saw the before and after photos and realised there was a solution within reach.
“When Clara goes to school,” Dede says, dejected. “The children tease her because she can’t make herself understood. So she avoids going outside and doesn’t attend school so often.”
One week later, Clara and Dede board a bus, paid for by Operation Smile, that takes them to the medical mission site in Antsirabe. At the Operation Smile patient shelter, more than 300 patients and caregivers have gathered to attend the next day’s health screenings, which determine who will be able to receive surgery during the medical mission.
The following day, Clara is carefully examined by Operation Smile medical volunteers and is deemed healthy enough to receive cleft lip surgery, joining the more than 160 children that would receive surgery that week. Operation Smile volunteer cleft surgeon Dr. Petra Peterson of Sweden has carefully planned Clara’s procedure. Clara’s bilateral cleft lip is broad and also affects her nose. With a pen, Petra marks the skin with small dots. Then, the operation to carefully stitch her lip together, layer by layer, can begin. It’s like a puzzle – all the pieces are there, but they need to be fit together just right.
Eight months later, we meet Clara again at the local health clinic. This time, 9-year-old carries herself with a newfound sense of confidence – she doesn’t look down or avoid eye contact. We then take the long walk with her to her school – over hills, rice paddies and rivers. When we arrive, she runs ahead of us, eager to show us to her friends.
They’re now preparing to go back to the hospital in Antsirabe for Clara’s palate surgery.
