Helping children smile
Mon 14 May 2007
Lucy Killip, Journalism
Sunshine Coast based charity Helping Children Smile has been working hard to give impoverished children in the Philippines a chance at a normal life.
Helping Children Smile (HCS) is an organisation that sends a team of plastic surgeons, doctors and nurses once a year to the Philippines to operate on children born with cleft palates and other facial deformities.
One child in every 600 is born with a facial deformity and due to the relationship of the malformation with ethnicity this ratio is higher in the Asian population.
The negative stigma attached to facial deformities means children are often unable to attend school and adults struggle to find employment.
Helping Children Smile Inc receives no government funding from either Australia or the Philippines and dedicated volunteers raise all the money needed to cover travel expenses and medical costs associated with the missions.
Tracey Madden works as an anaesthetic nurse at Nambour hospital and has been involved in the Helping Children Smile organisation for the last seven years and travelled to the Philippines fives times to assist with the operations.
“I became involved with Helping Children Smile when a work colleague asked me to replace her on one of the trips, it’s a great feeling to help people who would never be able to afford the surgery in their lifetime,” Ms Madden said. 
Fourteen people travelled to Cabanatuan north of Manila in February this year as part of the medical team.
“We operated on 54 kids and their families were very grateful to receive the operations,” Ms Madden said.
To help fund the medical ventures a charity boutique was established in Nambour with the help of Nambour local Lorry Rowe.
Ms Rowe admits it is difficult competing against other opportunity shops in Nambour that are backed by large organisations and churches but she is proud of what Helping Children Smile Inc has achieved.
“All the money we make in the shop goes directly to helping the children after the rent, phone and electricity bills are paid and we always manage to make a profit. I do it simply because I know where every cent goes,” Ms Rowe said.
Ms Rowe is also involved in raising funds for the charity through garage sales, sausage sizzles, raffles, golf days and chocolate drives.
Next year Ms Rowe hopes to travel with the medical team and observe first hand the miracles being performed in the Philippines.
Image(s) designed by Stock Exchange Photo #777460