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Charity Group Restores Malawi Smiles a Surgery at a Time

Lameck Masina

   ZOMBA, MALAWI - International charity Operation Smile is helping
   Malawians with cleft lips and palates leave behind shame and
   embarrassment stemming from their condition.

   Agnes Chiotcha recalls her reaction when she gave birth last year to a
   son with a cleft lip.

   Chiotcha says she was devastated and wondered why she gave birth to
   such a child.

   "What the hell happened to him to make him look like this?" she said
   she asked herself.

   In her home village, people spread a rumor that her child's cleft lip
   was from a botched, backstreet abortion.

   Others accused Chiotcha of using contraceptives that deformed her baby.

   Chiotcha says she told them that this is not because of contraceptives.

   "How could I take contraceptives if I had another child? I told them
   that this is how God created him," she said.

   The charity Operation Smile says cleft lips and palates are the world's
   third most common birth defect, in 1 out of 750 births.

   Operation Smile gives free corrective surgeries to those who have the
   condition.

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