Bringing smiles around the world

The Global Smile Foundation (GSF) sits in a kind of small, unassuming office across from the Norwood Memorial Airport.

The company shares the building with an electrical company and a flight school, and youd be forgiven if walking in you thought it was simply an office for a small company or nonprofit with a corresponding reach. But then, you go back just a little further, and you see several shelves filled to the brim with medical and surgical supplies, and its then you might think there was something bigger going on. And youd be right.

GSF President Usama Hamdan worked out of his office and for a bit in the Norwood Hospital for decades providing surgical care, mostly involving cleft palettes. In 2008, he started the Global Smile Foundation, which now provides cleft palette care to Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador and Lebanon (and other countries when governments and global stability allow) to provide hundreds of surgeries to children every year.

It is not what you take with you, it is what you leave behind, he said in an email.

The team works out of the small Norwood office and, according to Director of Development and Marketing Lisa Crist, they used to have a much smaller office than that to collect donations of funds and medical equipment to get the outreach teams ready for their trips overseas.

Medical care for cleft palette is not only rare in these countries, its extremely expensive. Its also one of the most common birth defects in the world, and affects one in every 700 live births on average. In some parts of the world its more common than that.

In the Middle East, its one in every 400 live births and its getting worse because of all the geo-political crises, they just dont have the medical infrastructure, Crist said. Its just collapsed, in many places, and these poor families dont even have basic care, let alone for cleft.

The team pointed out that cleft isnt singularly a cosmetic problem, as it can affect dental health, open up the patient to infections, affect speech development and can have social, cultural and psychological ramifications as well.

Children who are born with cleft, they cannot access the same social services that are available to everyone else, Crist said. Babies need special bottles to feed; they need more enriched food because theyre born underweight to begin with and they cant always go to the educational programs or do the other activities because they get made fun of. There is a real superstition in some places around cleft.

Crist added sometimes those superstitions affect the whole family. Weve had moms tell us that theyve been told they did something wrong and this is their punishment or that theyre cursed; I mean its heartbreaking, she said.

GSF Operations Manager Beyhan Annan said thats why they have to provide not just traditional medical care from several different types of physicians surgery, dental, speech pathology but also psychological treatment. Its not just the surgery that were doing, it involves multiple disciplines, she said. There is the surgery aspect, but there is also the dental aspect, the psycho-social aspect, the feeding and nutritional aspects.

Crist said continuing care is the vital aspect of the program. While she said GSF and other organizations have developed procedures that encompass what would normally be several surgeries, there are further follow ups they have to do to make sure the surgeries were successful and that the child is ready to face the world. In outreach settings a lot of the time they cant come back five times, she said.

Annan also pointed out patients need speech therapies, as children with cleft palettes tend to learn how to form words with their mouths the way they are, and generally when they have the corrective surgeries things work differently than they were used to. So speech pathology is essential to make sure the child is ready for their first day of school.

Translators are a huge part of the outreach program too. On each outreach trip there are about 170 people involved, whether theyre going out or being recruited onsite, there are a lot of people needed to make sure everything goes smoothly. Perhaps obviously, surgeons are needed, but the speech therapists, translators, dentists, pediatricians, local guides and more are required to make sure the continuum of care is complete.

We have a huge amount of volunteers; they do a lot of translation for us as well as logistics because not every surgeon is going to speak Spanish, and certainly not at the level we need to interact with any level of sophistication. Like the rest of us too, we could probably order in a restaurant but we need a lot of translation support, said Crist.

Crist added that they oftentimes need local translation, as regional slang can be so prevalent even native speakers can be confounded. We had a research fellow from Mexico last year and when we went to Guayaguil, Ecuador, they were all laughing between themselves about what words were not working, she said.

Annan added that the outreach teams often need translators as well, as the teams comprise members from several different countries. We have traveling team members literally from all over the world, she said. Like Qatar, the United Kingdom, Mexico, India they all join us; it is not just U.S. based.

Global Smile Development Associate Casey Frey said they also work with outreach programs in hospitals and universities, like Boston Childrens Hospital, the University of Kentucky and Brigham and Womens (Boston General Hospital) to train the next generation of outreach volunteers.

They send their residents to come and train with us. They are not considered official surgeons or pediatricians; they are training with our team to get to know the outreach setting and how they have to change around the model, she said. Students are only exposed to the U.S. way, but were going to low-income countries where things are super different.

Crist, Annan, and Frey all said the point of much of their efforts is to get medical care in these regions to point where the interventions are no longer necessary.

In San Salvador, we work at the Benjamin Blooms Children Hospital. Thats one of the few places that have a cleft team. Weve been working with them on training and donations and things like that, but there are not enough of them, Crist said. Theyre still a small team and they cannot handle the number of patients and the amount of surgeries. Theyre amazing and were lucky to work with them, but its just that they dont have enough.

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Crist said they work with sponsoring companies, medical providers and more to elicit donations of equipment and funds to keep the work going. We work with companies all over the world, but especially in the United States, to get in-kind donations of things like sutures, medications, blades and all sorts of things I cant even tell you because I have no medical experience, she said.

GSF accepts donations of almost any kind, and also has an Amazon Wishlist (https://gsmile.org/wish-list/) you can purchase items the group needs for outreach.

Here in Norwood and all over the country actually the Foundation offers volunteer opportunities for youth in the form of the Junior Board. Frey said the Junior Board is essentially a way for high school students to get their feet wet in a professional setting, as well as setting up college students really no matter which major theyre going into to build the volunteer habits to help them later in their careers.

The whole goal of it is to maintain this interest in doing good and in building brighter, happier, and healthier smiles and futures, she said. And getting your hands dirty in ways that you can with hope and intention to grow and be able to come on these outreach programs with GSF as a medical volunteer, or whatever volunteer work you can do.

Crist said they have worked with several local organizations to facilitate fundraisers, like the various local Rotary Clubs in the area, Norwood High School, Westwood High School, the Town, and more, and will be setting up a local fundraiser in Norwood in the coming months. Frey said this year they set up a booth at the Norwood Common for the Norwood Farmers Market every Tuesday, where she said shes been able to interact with residents on a much larger scale than the groups previous outreach.

It takes every kind of support, and people can get involved if and where they are comfortable, Crist said. In the past, weve had people come in to volunteer, but we really needed someone like Casey to work with them and make it more of a program to give folks more of what they want.

Purpose, said Frey, adding that they do certify service hours.

Annan said she can always find work for those looking to do some good.

There is always an opportunity for the community, especially the Norwood community, to come into the office and work with us, she said. We have had several students come in and pack medical supplies. We had someone from Westwood who used to come in and help me get ready for a trip out. There are always small tasks in the office that any age group can come in and make this their way of volunteering and giving back, even if they're not willing to travel. We are totally open to that.

For more information on GSF and to learn how to get involved or donate, go to GSmile.org"