Plenty of cause to smile in China

Heartwarming news reaches us from Beijing where cleft charity The Smile Train (www.SmileTrain.org) this week called a press conference to announce that it has now funded and performed 250,000 free cleft repair surgeries in China. The conference was attended by over 50 media agencies, while three live surgeries were broadcast to show the nature and

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Lots of miles – but not enough smiles

Miles for Smiles in Dubai is now just 27 days away. Training schedules have been thrown into chaos by the inevitable late nights and excess consumption of last week’s TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes and earlier boasts about reduced times in this second travel retail 10k ‘fun run’ event are having to be hastily revised.

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A blended dram that simply may never be bettered

All can be revealed. Indeed, all has been revealed. As mentioned in my last Blog, I am here in Singapore to witness a unique collaboration between a brand, a retailer, an airport and a charity. Yesterday at Singapore Changi Airport (the airport), an extraordinary new Scotch whisky blend was unveiled to the world at the

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Two faces, one child

Two faces. One child. Meet Xena Cordova from the Philippines. This little girl is five years old and comes from one of the country’s poorest areas. Her parents, though loving, are uneducated and illiterate. They could never afford to pay for the cleft surgery their beautiful but disfigured daughter needed. But help was at hand.

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All smiles in County New York

If there’s one place to be other than Ireland on St Patrick’s Day it has to be New York. This city celebrates its Irish roots like no other. The whole place is a swathe of green and a giant party that began early this morning is set to continue into the wee small hours of tomorrow.

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A letter from The Smile Train Co-Founder and President

Less than 48 hours after the Oscars triumph of Smile Pinki, the documentary set in India that tells the story of a little girl with a cleft whose life is transformed by surgery funded by The Smile Train, we received this note from a delighted Brian Mullaney, Co-Founder and President of the charity. It tells

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Smile Pinki wins Oscar glory…

Incredible. Just incredible. As I write, in the early hours of the morning London time, Smile Pinki has just won the Oscar for Best Short Documentary at the 2009 Academy Awards in Los Angeles. The true story of a young Indian girl with a cleft lip and palate, directed by American filmmaker Megan Mylan, beat

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“They all call me Pinki now”

It could be a big night for India at the Oscars ceremony in Hollywood on Sunday evening. While most eyes will be on Slumdog Millionaire’s bid for the Best Picture Award, a few hours earlier a less celebrated but perhaps more important film, also set in India, will have its own chance of glory. I’m talking

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Mirroring despair – then joy

It’s sometimes easy to grow weary of charities, weary of giving. All of us are blitzed from all sides with requests for donations to countless good causes. Maybe some of you feel that way about The Smile Train, the cleft charity which we and others in travel retail have so championed over the past two

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Reflections of a cleft child

News that a documentary, set in India, and dedicated to The Smile Train, has been nominated for a Hollywood Oscar is just about the biggest boost imaginable for the cleft charity. Smile Pinki is the true story of Pinki and Ghutaru, two young girls in rural India born desperately poor whose cleft lips have made

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And now, the end is near…

The phoney war is over, the side-bets have been laid. And the sponsorship – a remarkable sum, understood to be well north of US$150,000 – has been raised. Yes Saturday is Miles for Smiles day – the big 5k/10k run/walk/crawl that has attracted over 55 runners from around the world and across the travel retail

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Disaster along the road to perdition

This Blog is a tale of fortitude, foolhardiness and frozen peas (above). And it had all been going so well… Saturday, November 8, London, 07.15 The big trial has arrived. My first attempt at 10k, exactly two weeks before the big Miles for Smiles fund-raising run in Dubai. If I can do it today, I can

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