Malawi

Expanding Access to Care

To ensure that every child has access to care close to home, we equip the providers within our patients’ communities with skills and resources to deliver high quality care. We build the needed capacity by harnessing the talent and resources that exist within the country, usually in the bigger cities, the hubs, to train providers in under-resourced areas, the spokes, where most patients lack access to care.​

In Malawi, Operation Smile has hubs at the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe and at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and The Mercy James Centre in Blantyre.​

We have spokes at Mzuzu Central Hospital in Mzuzu and at Zomba Central Hospital in Zomba.​

Operation Smile works in partnership with district hospitals to provide comprehensive cleft care services in Karonga, Mzimba, Nkhotakota, Dowa, Dedza, Mchinji, Chikwawa, Mangochi and Mulanje.​

Five-Year Vision

Over the next five years, Operation Smile Malawi will recruit new patients, supported by our pool of community health volunteers and the utilization of their Buffalo Bikes. Buffalo Bikes allow volunteers to travel to the most remote areas within their communities to reach potential patients and visit health facilities. Additionally, we will focus on targeted recruitment at birth and maternity facilities to identify and assist newborns and their families as early as possible.​

Operation Smile Malawi aims to provide more than 2,500 patients with surgery and more than 4,000 patients with comprehensive care over the next five years. Utilizing our successful hub and spoke model, which allows us to reach communities across the country, will be key to achieving this target.​

Operation Smile will strengthen training pathways by providing long-term volunteer placements, residencies through the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA), training during short-term surgical programs and Cleft Surgery Training Programs. Over the next five years, we will provide 960 training opportunities to health workers across Malawi. ​

Our Partners

Operation Smile Malawi works alongside a number of local and national NGOs and foundations. These include the Press Trust, Mai Aisha Trust, Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation, National Initiative for Civic Education, Malawi Against Physical Disabilities, Malawi Council for the Handicapped, Civil Society Organization Nutrition Alliance, Road to Relief and various community radios.​​

The Kentown Wizard Foundation, based in the UK, has been a key partner of Operation Smile Malawi for more than five years. The Foundation supports our work in Malawi through the Cleft Free Malawi initiative, a grant which has had a transformational impact on our programs. ​​

Operation Smile has an established relationship with the Ministry of Health in Malawi, which allows us to work and partner with hospitals across the country.​