By Leigh Andrews

The Smile Foundation has a long association with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, as Nelson Mandela shares the foundation’s commitment to helping children smile again. Many South African sporting and entertainment celebrities are associated with the Smile Foundation, too – as a result, well-known names such as Gareth Cliff; Louise Carver; Loyiso; Dr Victor; Denim; Jesse Clegg; Jen Su; Kerishnie Naicker; and Cindy Nell were in attendance, as well as Professor George Psaras, Medical Director and Co-Founder of the Smile Foundation.

Marc Lubner, Executive Chairman and Founder of the Smile Foundation, welcomed attendees to the event and explained that the Smile Foundation is a non-profit organisation that brings people together for the purpose of providing expert surgical intervention, creating greater social involvement and enabling sensible corporate investment, to make a difference in the lives of children with facial anomalies. During Smile Week, children’s facial deformities are corrected in a child-friendly environment, giving them a new lease on life with the ‘gift of a smile’. He explained that since Thandi, the ‘initial Mandela smile child’, over 500 children have since been helped in the Smile Foundation’s decade of existence.

This year, National Smile Week took place from 7 to 11 June. Over 50 surgeries were performed across six state academic hospitals, including Gauteng’s Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital; Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto; and Dr George Mukhari Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa. Other hospitals participating in the event included Tygerberg and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in the Western Cape; and Universitas Hospital in Bloemfontein.

Lubner described each of these hospitals as very ‘child-friendly’, and said he was impressed with the excellent levels of surgical care and information sharing of offer, so that the parents understood to only feed the children who had been operated on soft foods, and toys were available in the wards for the children to play with. He added that the hospitals the Smile Foundation operates in deal with a mass of people who trust the NGO by letting it ‘play on their turf’, as it is not the Smile Foundation that performs the operations, but the actual staff of the hospitals. Lubner feels the Smile Foundation is “just a small cog that helps turn a number of large wheels”, and appealed to the audience to make an extra effort to ‘do something a little different’, as they have done with the Smile Foundation as a continuation of Madiba’s legacy.

Next, the foundation’s COO, Moira Gerszt, showed a DVD detailing the 10-year history of the Smile Foundation. It was born in 2000 as The Star Smile Fund, following the request of Nelson Mandela, Founder Patron, to secure surgery for a young child suffering from a rare syndrome causing facial nerve paralysis. The Lubner family took on the challenge to bring surgeons to South Africa from Canada to perform the surgery and provide skills training for Professor George Psaras, Head of Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, and his team. Lubner recruited the support of The Star newspaper group to launch The Star Smile Fund. Mandela visited the famous young patient, Thandi, throughout her recovery. The Fund built a solid foundation at the Johannesburg General Hospital in 2001, and in 2002 launched the Smile Week model, after the all-South African surgical team completed the surgery of Sereviano du Preez, who was in attendance at the event. The first official Smile Week was held in 2003, and with first corporate sponsor, Independent Cash & Carry (ICC), the Smile Foundation gave 45 children ‘the gift of a smile’. The Foundation grew over the years and in 2007, became an independent Section 21 company and was relaunched as the Smile Foundation. The relaunch helped the Foundation to spread its wings, as this lead to the inception of Vodacom’s ‘Tries for smiles’ campaign, where Vodacom pledged to donate money to the Foundation for each try scored during the Super 14 event.

Next, Professor Psaras said that it is the surgical team of the Smile Foundation that has the best job, as they get to do what they love most by operating on the kids, and said, “there is no greater reward than repairing a palate and seeing the parents’ smile.” He stated that Smile Week’s ultimate goal is to eliminate all facial deformity, and the Smile Foundation’s primary focus is to address the backlog in the public healthcare system for children who suffer from cleft lips and palates, as well as burn victims, and those who suffer from Moebius syndrome (facial paralysis) and other conditions. As these require specialised skills, the team trains surgeons, which improves the quality of the public and private health sector, and collaborated to purchase additional equipment for the hospitals where needed. Gerszt added that it is heart-warming to realise the calibre of relationships that the Foundation has built with the hospitals and stated the Smile Foundation aims to emulate the famous quote by St Francis, that we should, “start by doing what is necessary; then what is possible; and finally, we will be doing the impossible.”

Lubner took to the podium again to explain that the Smile Foundation goes beyond the surgery, as there is an increased focus on understanding the psychological and social needs of the patients and their families, and in keeping with the Smile Foundation’s objective of offering holistic care, greater focus is being placed on this aspect. A ‘child-friendly’ system has been developed to reduce the children’s fear of surgery, with services ranging from a proper induction and explanation of their procedure through role playing prior to surgery, to the child leaving the hospital with a great understanding of their experience. When called upon, Kerishnie Naicker explained that as a board member of the Foundation, she found that celebrities align with the foundation to improve the lives of the children by visiting them in hospital during their recovery, so that they feel accepted.

We also heard about ‘We love Africa’, a German initiative from Baden-Wuerttemberg, which is a passionate engagement that raised funds for 32 more operations through the ‘Big Shoe’ project. This entails 32 big ‘shoes’ are made and signed by supporters of the project to put smiles on the faces of children. The idea was built from a partnership that began in Germany with the 2006 World Cup, when the Togo football team was stationed in Wangen, sparking a need to start collecting money for Togo children suffering from cleft lips and palates. The project is now focused on South Africa as we are this year’s World Cup host country, with the boots seen as a ‘symbol of movement’ that is strengthening the relationship between Europe and Africa - with Sepp Blatter and even the Pope have expressed interest in autographing the boots.

Sereviano then shared a few words about his experience with the Smile Foundation, stating that a smile is an inexpensive way to change your looks – and when you’re not able to smile you can knock on the Smile Foundation’s door for help. He ended by quoting Madiba, who ends speeches with the words, “I thank you.”

Lubner ended the event by stating that Sereviano is an excellent ambassador for the Smile Foundation. She introduced the live performance art portion of the event – singer Loyiso, who is also a member of the ‘Smile family’, and who wrote a song for the Smile Foundation six years ago, called ‘The Smile Song’. He treated the audience to a rendition of the song while artist, John Adams, spent 10 minutes drawing a portrait of Madiba.

A truly inspiring event. On exit, guests were presented with a vuvuzela and a ‘Smile’ gift book, filled with quotes such as ‘everyone smiles in the same language,’ to remind us of the power of a smile.

Click here for a gallery of photos from the event.