The surgeries include cleft lip and palate repairs, allowing them to live healthier, more confident lives. One of the children this year is a toddler from Welkom who has waited more than a year to undergo his unilateral cleft lip repair following heart surgery.

Smile Week, celebrated till Friday (3/10), aims to provide free surgery and therapy for children with facial anomalies and burn injuries – giving them a chance at a brighter future and helping reduce the emotional and psychological challenges they face.

“This week we’ll be helping 20 children, and predominantly what we’ll be doing is kids’ palate surgery,” said Universitas plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Nikita Blake.

“And that is something that we can’t necessarily see; it’s not an obvious in-your-face deformity, but when someone opens their mouth and their speech is abnormal, they are perceived as abnormal.

“If we can correct the speech, we literally correct the paths for their lives because they actually can integrate and, in the long run, can apply for jobs and schools, and these are things we take for granted.”

Blake appeals to the parents of children with speech abnormalities to “please go and get evaluated, because the sooner we can address this, the better”.

In February, the Smile Foundation provided life-changing reconstructive surgeries to 17 children, treating conditions including cleft lips and palates, burns, and burn contractures.

This year, it was mainly cleft lip repairs, and one of the recipients was Kaia Nixon, 6, who was born with a cleft lip and palate. She had her cleft lip surgery when she was younger, and was now back for her palate surgery.

“My hope for Kaia after this surgery is the best; I hope she can have a normal life like an ordinary child,” said Dylan, Kaia’s dad. “She is an ordinary child, but I would love her to speak normally and just be a normal girl.”

Universitas Hospital nursing manager Jack Radebe, COO of Smile Foundation Tshidi Chabane-Xaba, and plastic surgeon Dr Nikita Blake. Photo: Warren Hawkins

One of the parents from Koffiefontein was there for her one-year-old toddler’s second operation – this time to repair his palate, following his cleft lip surgery in November last year.

“Because Botlhokwa is still young, his cleft lip and palate haven’t affected his life in any way, and I hope with the second operation everything will go well, so that he can be able to speak properly,” said Roeline van Wyk, Botlhokwa’s mother.

OFM News/Zenande Mpame cvs