Reflecting on 30 Years of Providing Care at Operation Smile Colombia

A famous tango lyric says “20 years are nothing,” but anyone working at Operation Smile Colombia will tell you 30 years is really something. 

Operation Smile started working in Colombia in 1988, when Carlos Arturo Vargas and his cousin Antonio Vargas decided to join forces to transform the lives of people with cleft conditions, co-founding Operation Smile in the country.

According to Marcela Tamayo, current executive director of Operation Smile Colombia, a family event – the loss of a very young son – motivated Carlos Arturo “to make sure that the life of his son and the family had a greater purpose.” 

Carlos Arturo – who died in February 2024 – “was a businessman; he created a factory in the steel sector in a region located in the center of Colombia, called Duitama-Boyacá, near the capital Bogotá, to which he dedicated his entire life,” explains Marcela. “He created companies to generate employment, but he always had a heart for having a greater impact on people. He just died this year, so it is extra special to celebrate his legacy.” 
 
We sat down to chat with Tamayo to hear her thoughts about Arturo’s vision, the impact of Operation Smile Colombia since its founding 30 years ago and its ambitions for the future. 

Tell us about how Operation Smile became established in Colombia, which began in the late 1980s when Carlos Arturo Vargas received a visit from a cousin from the United States who told him about Operation Smile.

Marcela Tamayo: “The initial idea was to care for children with cleft lips and/or palates in Boyacá, which was the place where his factory was, and what he always said was that he, who knew everyone, from the operators and the workers to the administrators, when they called for patients, never imagined that there would be so many children with this condition, because at that time they were very hidden. 

[After the first program in 1988] they began to study what had to be done to create Operation Smile Colombia; in December 1994 they were finally able to achieve their goal. The Vargas family shouldered everything that had to be done, calling volunteers, using their house, because they never really stopped. He was part of the Board of Directors until his last days.” 

What about your own history with the organization? … Has it been a part of your life since you were a teenager? 

MT: “I have been part of this organization with my husband for many years. I knew Operation Smile Colombia from a very young age, and when I was about 17 or 18 years old, I began to participate in some programs as a student volunteer with him. My final school project was precisely on Operation Smile.” 

After volunteering in fundraising for the organization for many years, you joined the local team as coordinator of the “The Place of Smiles” program in 2022, and then became executive director just last year. In all your experience, is there a patient you have met that lingers in your mind? 

MT: “I will never forget a child and his father who came to a surgical program in Cartagena in 2008. I remember having the complete list of patients to be operated on, and a man arrived very late with a child who must have been 8 years old and had an untreated cleft lip and palate. We told him the assessments were over, and I vividly remember the father’s desperation to at least have a chance for his child to be seen. Thankfully, they managed to open a space for him. 

I will never forget his face when he saw him after surgery. I still get excited when I recall it. He hugged his son, and crying he told me, ‘Is not him, is not him.'”

What are you most proud of when it comes to your accomplishments at Operation Smile Colombia? 

MT: “In Colombia, we have performed more than 25,000 surgeries in all these years, we have approximately 17,000 registered patients, and what we want is to become a reference. This implies that we take necessary actions so that this country knows how to care for cleft lip and/or palate conditions, with the support and knowledge that we have.”

What excites you about the organization’s future? 

MT: “We dream big, and we dream of an organization that continues to care for patients, without a doubt. But I think we have already reached the point of believing a little about what we are; we are the most important private entity that addresses this condition in the country.  

Our future will be to focus on education, strengthen the health system, training and bringing together health professionals in our country, disseminating our work, and advocating and influencing public policies to guarantee the rights of children and providing a timely and quality care.”

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