By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The Border Security Force (BSF) has taken up the mantle of bringing back the smiles of children suffering from cleft lips and palates by entering into a partnership with the Rotary Club of Calcutta Victoria to help children from border villages along the Indo-Bangladesh border suffering from the problem.
The Rotary Club of Calcutta Victoria is currently involved in taking up the programme initiated by the Smile Train which the world’s largest cleft lip and palate charity.
The tie up which was arrived at between the BSF and the Rotary Club in January this year has begun to yield positive results with five children hailing from the border villages of Meghalaya already receiving the corrective treatment at Woodland Hospital, the only hospital in the State which has been empanelled for this programme.
The BSF has named this noble project as ‘Darpan’ which was launched on January 31 last at Kolkata by the BSF Director General Subhash Joshi.
To celebrate the first success of the partnership between the two organisations, the BSF Meghalaya Frontier on Friday organized a free surgical rectification of cleft lip and palate under the aegis of Border Security Force Wives Welfare Association (BWWA).
In the first phase, the BSF is targeting to provide treatment to 50 plus children in the whole of East India by the end of August.
While speaking to a group of reporters after the function on Friday, 10-year-old Gilbertson Shadap from Jaliakhola, a border village in Jaintia Hills, expressed his happiness at finally being relieved of his deformity which he was carrying since his birth.
“My friends used to make fun of me because of which I preferred to be alone in school. But now this problem has finally been removed because of the BSF,” Gilbertson said.
Briefing about the whole concept of this tie up, Rotary Club of Calcutta Victoria member Ranjan Mussadi said that they were initially
apprehensive of whether the BSF would accept the proposal to be part of the world wide initiative of Smile Train to provide free treatment to people suffering from cleft palates and lips.
“We are really happy that they have agreed to come on board for this noble initiative,” Mussadi added.
He said that Cleft lip & Palate (CLAP) is a birth-defect which can totally derail a person’s life due to associated stigmas.
Under project ‘Darpan’, the BSF Additional DG BD Sharma informed that people suffering from cleft palates and lips are surgically treated free of cost.
“Post this life-changing surgery, the person can live an absolutely normal life,” Sharma said.
He said that the role of the BSF is to identify the cases and thereafter bring them to Shillong for screening by the medical team.
“The cases that were approved for surgical rectification were admitted to the Woodland Hospital, especially empanelled under this programme to conduct surgeries on a regular basis,” the BSF official said.
While a similar surgery would cost anywhere between Rs. 40,000-50,000, under the project the operation is totally free due to funding provided by Smile Train, an International NGO.
In the first lot, five surgeries were successfully conducted a week ago and another two cases have been taken up for surgery, he informed.