Operation smile: A new year

Operation smile is a worldwide children's medical charity whose network of global volunteers is dedicated to helping improve the health and lives of children and young adults. It was founded in 1982 in Norfolk (USA), and has provided free surgery and related health care to more than 160 000 patients born with cleft lips and other facial deformities all over the world. The organization is present in more than 60 countries, with 12 in Africa.
In each country where they work, their goal is to create self-sustainable programs that provide free surgical care as well as education and training. They ensure every patient treated by Operation Smile benefits from the best equipment, procedures and highly trained medical volunteers, no matter where they live.

I have been a member of the Operation smile group in the International school of Kenya for 2 years now and this is my third. Last year as a group, we have been pretty successful, and actually almost as successful as we expected by raising quite some money for a really great cause. Working as a group was really helpful, it was like a motivation and determination to achieve our goals, when one doesn’t have an idea someone else can contribute and help, and someone else can make that idea or plan ever better. I have learned that sometimes you have to think about other people and not be selfish, that you, even though you cant do much, but any input and any help whatsoever can make a huge difference in someone’s else’s life in the world.

This year we haven't done many projects yet, there was the PTO picnic, we also had a bake sale and bracelets sale, and the bracelets had "Operation smile ISK" written on them which I think was a really good idea, because it advertises our group and at the same time we are raising money for the surgeries.

This group has many devoted members and well all want the same thing. I hope that we will be able to achieve our goals this year and raises as much money and awareness as we can. This is for me the most meaningful activity I do, I do other stuff for community service but nothing seems as important and touching as this one because knowing that we are changing children's lives is amazing.