Corporate Social Review Magazine 1st Quarter 2012 | Page 59

NPO
Changing the world, One smile at a time.
The Smile Foundation
The Smile Foundation was born in 2000 following
a direct request from Nelson Mandela. Born as the
Star Smile Fund the founding purpose of the fund
was to secure surgery for a young child suffering
from a rare syndrome causing facial nerve paralysis.

T

he Lubner family took on the
challenge of bringing surgeons to South Africa from
Canada in order to perform the
surgery and provide skills training for Professor George Psaras,
Head of Department of Plastic
and Reconstructive Surgery,and
his team at the Charlotte Maxeke
Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
Marc Lubner recruited the support
of The Star Newspaper group to
launch the Star Smile Fund.
Following phenomenal growth and
outstanding achievements, the organisation was able to register as
an independent Section 21 (Public Benefit Organisation) in 2007

and was re-launched as The Smile
Foundation.
The re-launch of The Smile Foundation enabled it to focus on its
core areas of expertise. The foundation brings people together for
the purpose of providing expert
surgical intervention for children
requiring Plastic and Reconstructive surgery. Wherever applicable
this also creates greater social involvement, skills transfer and development for medical practitioners including surgeons, nurses,
social workers, physical therapists
and
psychologists/psychiatrists.
The Foundation also works with
schools, parents and communities

to provide education and social
support helping them to deal with
any anomalies, thereby helping to
reduce rejection.
The Smile Foundation is about
meaningfully connecting people
so as to provide children with corrective surgery and enabling them
to lead as normal a life as possible. The Smile Foundationhas,to
date,changed almost 1000 children’s lives!

How The Smile Foundation is putting smiles on
children’s faces in South
Africa
The primary focus of the Smile
Foundation is to address the medical backlog in the public healthcare system when it comes to the
essential treatment of children
who suffer from treatable facial abnormalities such as Cleft Lip and
Palate, burn victims, Moebius syndrome (facial paralysis) and other
conditions.
Patients are sourced via the hospital referral system, word-of-mouth,
media awareness/campaigns (e.g.
posters at clinics), donor referrals
and the Smile Foundation’s tollfree number.
Patients are assessed and if the
patient’s condition is urgent, Smile
ensures they are scheduled into
the immediate hospital operating schedule. If not urgent, they
are added to the upcoming Smile
Week schedule.

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CORPORATE SOCIAL REVIEW