“Smile Pinki” won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, simply but powerfully bringing to life the devastation of the millions of children suffering from cleft palates and lips – and the amazingly easy way these kids are being helped.
It takes only 45 minutes and $250 to perform surgery that fixes the cleft and improves a child’s life forever. The Smile Train has provided hundreds of thousands of these surgeries for free in the poorest regions of the world, and “Smile Pinki” focuses on two of these children: six-year-old Pinki and 11-year-old Ghutaru. Ashamed of their birth defects, neither child went to school, and both jumped at the chance to have this surgery.
This movie will touch your heart, showing that parents all over the world want only the best for their children and are willing to do anything necessary to get it – even if it means walking three hours to see the doctor.
As you watch Pinki and Ghutaru play happily at school a few months after their surgeries, your smile is likely to be as big as theirs.
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