Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: August 6-14

October 21, 2009

It is a pleasure to announce our recent medical mission in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, held August 6-14. Volunteers from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and the United States, provided medical evaluations for 492 patients, the most patients Operation Smile has ever screened during its 11 years in Brazil!

During the course of the medical mission, 113 patients received life-changing surgery, and 53 patients from the first medical mission in Rio de Janeiro, returned for their one-year, post-operative check-up.

During the medical mission, there was extensive national media coverage. The most important television and radio outlets in Brazil visited the mission site, the Hospital Universitario Clementino Fraga Filho. Journalists from major newspapers, magazines and web sites also covered the events of the medical mission and helped spread awareness about Operation Smile throughout the country.

Operation Smile volunteers and patients were honored by visits from the First Ladies of the City of Rio de Janerio and from the State of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the support from the Brazilian Navy.

A multidisciplinary education program took place during the medical mission with more than 165 health care professionals attending the conferences.
 
Several activities were held prior to the medical mission. On July 22, at the Palácio da Cidade, or city palace, Sérgio de Oliveira Cabral Santos Filho, governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, and his wife Adriana Ancelmo Cabral, the First Lady of the state of Rio de Janeiro, hosted a charity cocktail party and auction for Operation Smile Brazil.

Three hundred guests attended the event, and by the end of evening the proceeds from the auction raised $40,000.

Also, a store opened at one of the biggest malls in Brazil, where Operation Smile volunteers from Rio de Janeiro spent two weeks spreading awareness about Operation Smile’s programs as well as holding fundraising activities.

Operation Smile Brazil is proud of the social mobilization performed by local volunteers, private companies and the government for the support of its programs as well as for securing the follow-up care of its patients who received surgery at the local cleft centers in Rio de Janeiro. Without everyone’s cooperation and support the success of the medical mission would not have been possible!

Since 1997, Operation Smile international volunteer teams have provided more than 5,230 physical examinations and more than 2,555 surgeries for children and young adults in Brazil, giving them new hope and new smiles.

First international mission: 1997

International mission sites: Belem, Belo Horizonte, Cuiaba, Fortaleza, Goiania, Maceio, Natal, Rio de Janeiro, and Santarem

Local mission sites: Barbalha, Belem, Joinville and Natal