In collaboration with the Muthoot Pappachan Foundation and Techno India Dama Hospital, Mission Smile, an FCRA-registered medical charity, announced a free cleft surgical camp that will take place at Techno India Dama Hospital in Kolkata from May 26 to May 30, 2025.

The Muthoot Pappachan Foundation’s Pan India Initiative, SMILE PLEASE, aims to give children and young people from worthy families access to comprehensive, safe, and compassionate cleft surgeries at no cost. In collaboration with Mission Smile, the initiative was launched in Kerala in 2014 and has since expanded to 13 states, performing 3244 successful surgeries nationwide. For the last eight Smile Please Missions in Kolkata, 482 children and youth from West Bengal have had surgeries thanks to this program. As part of this collaboration, this will be the 9th Smile Please Mission at Kolkata and the third one at Techno India Dama Hospital.

The announcement was made in the presence of Mr Jayanto Narayan Choudhury-IPS, Retd. DGP of Assam & DG-NSG, currently serving as Co-Chairman of Mission Smile, Dr Prasanth Kumar Nellickal, Head-CSR of Muthoot Pappachan Foundation, Dr Sourabh Ghosh, MD-Techno India Dama Hospital, Mr Conrad Dennis, CEO-Mission Smile, Eminent Plastic Surgeons of East India, Dr Manish Mukul Ghosh, Mrs Mona Sarkar, CEO-Techno India Dama Hospital, Mr Soumen Bandyopadhyay, State Head-Muthoot Fincorp Limited-West Bengal, and Mr Dalip Pande, Director Partnership-Mission Smile.

Since its founding, Mission Smile has performed more than 49500 free cleft surgeries and 71,000 medical evaluations throughout India. Last year, Mission Smile provided free surgeries to 395 patients, out of a total of over 8,000 in West Bengal.

Mission Smile will give over 50 children born with cleft deformities a better future from May 26–29, 2025. This is made possible by the generous donations of the Muthoot Pappachan Foundation and Techno India Dama Hospital & Medical Centre. As they get closer to performing their 50,000th safe procedure, they are still dedicated to changing lives and making people happy everywhere.

Priyanka Dutta