Smile Pinki, SmileTrain and changing lives all over the world

I woke up this morning aware of the fact that the Oscars is just around the corner. If you read the news daily, you cannot have helped but read a thing or two about this year's heavy favourite, Slumdog Millionaire. Of course, having an Asian contender in this year's Oscars more than piqued my interest somewhat, and Kyle and I sat down last week to watch the movie online. Definitely a must watch. It lived up to all it's hype and was as thought provoking as I had expected it to be.

But the real Oscar-related headline that caught my eye this morning was a piece on Smile Pinki, a documentary about a little girl with a cleft lip. I once took a Speech-Language Pathology class in college (one of my most interesting classes ever!) and all the reading I did came back to me as I watched the Oscar nominated trailer for Smile Pinki,



The organisation behind this modern day miracle is 10-year old SmileTrain. To date, they have helped provide free treatment to over 500,000 children from developing countries, children whose families in no way could have afforded it. How does SmileTrain do it? Instead of flying in qualified doctors to these countries to conduct cleft surgeries like the one on Pinki, they educate, train and equip local medical personnel to operate these surgeries themselves. This cuts down costs from about USD10,000 to about USD250 (you read that right, folks. USD250 for life-changing event).

Watch Walter Cronkite talk about it here,



To donate to SmileTrain, visit them at their website below.

Make a difference today

With all the things going on in the world right now...sometimes it's all I can do to stop myself from wondering what I'm doing with myself when so many people need help.

Call me idealistic and naive if you want. I probably am, more than a wee bit :o).

So if you're wondering what difference you could make...here's a little help. You could play games online in order to make a difference, help feed the poor, help provide clean water, help donate money! There are websites dedicated to getting sponsors to donate food and water to those who need them, at every click of a button...from people like you and I.

Personally, the best site I think there is in terms of how straightforward the layout is, how transparent and informative they are with who their sponsors are and where donations go, is



A few other sites are
www.freeflour.com
www.helpthirst.com
www.freepoverty.com

Click today! You can help so many people by just spending five-ten minutes out of your free time clicking clicking clicking. :o)