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In 2021, Lachen e.V. celebrates its 25th anniversary: The charity was founded in 1996 by German soldiers and police officers to support children in war and crisis areas. Afghanistan is one of the charity's priority countries. Lachen e.V.'s humanitarian aid focuses on projects promoting education and health. In their anniversary year we are grateful for their generous donation of 5,000 euros and wish them another 25 successful years!

2021 presents us with great challenges. We are hoping to carry out 6,500 operations this year - despite the increased costs per surgery! New corona protective measures have led to an increase in the costs per operation in our project countries. In 2021, a surgery will cost 300 euros - 50 euros more than before.

The Sauren charity portfolio, the Christmas donation campaign of the financial service provider Sauren Finanzdienstleistungen GmbH & Co. KG from Cologne, already has twelve years of success to look back on. Every year, ten charitable organizations are selected for the portfolio. In 2020, we here at Deutsche Cleft Kinderhilfe are proud to be one of the ten selected organizations!

Duong's mother is blind. She works in a massage center, where she meets Duong's father. It wasn't until the fourth month that Duong's mother even realized she was pregnant. Duong is born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. The father visits his son only once, after which he breaks off contact with the mother of his child and disappears. Read on to learn more about how we were able to help Duong and his mother.

In mid-September we went on a large relief operation in Bogra (Bangladesh). Dr. Zaman, head of one of our four projects in Bangladesh, and his team operate 38 children with cleft lip and palate. Ria is one of them. She is barely a year old and this is already her second operation, after we had previously successfully treated her cleft lip. This time she gets the surgery for her cleft palate, finally freeing her of the many problems an untreated cleft palate causes.

It is always a joy for when we are able to accompany "our" children beyond their operations and followup treatments to see what has become of them. With Sheyla from Bolivia this was possible. In early 2018, her cleft lip was closed, and in late 2018 the palate surgery took place. Sheyla celebrated her third birthday on August 11, 2020. And we were able to zoom in and sing her a birthday song. Read the full story, which has a surprising happy ending twist.

Raiganj is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. The capital is Kolkata, formerly Calcutta. With over 91 million inhabitants, West Bengal is the fourth largest state in India. There are few treatment options for cleft patients available in the region. We have been running a cleft center in Kolkata since 2018 and are now pleased to be able to expand our aid for cleft children in West Bengal to Raiganj as a new location.

Prof. Ganatra has headed our aid project in Pakistan since 2016. A partner we can rely on - even in times of the pandemic. He has sent us impressions of one of his last surgery days. Seven mothers came to Al-Mustafa-Welfare Hospital in Karachi on January 9th with their children - and with great hope.

The safety of our patients, partners and workers is our top priority. We support our partners in Bangladesh with a Covid-19 aid program that adds additional financial resources to pay for the newly necessary equipment. Pulse oximeters, oxygen concentrators, protective equipment and surgical masks were handed over to Mugda Medical College & Hospital in Dhaka on December 24th.

The parents of our cleft children are always full of gratitude. When their child is born with cleft, they often do not know what to make of the malformation, much less that it can be treated. And even if they do - most of our little patients come from the poorest of backgrounds. Their parents could never afford the operation. It is an unimaginable happiness for them to learn that their children can receive qualified treatment, and free of charge even. This wonderful, touching film from our Bolivian aid project captures these special moments of happiness.

This film, made for our Pakistani partner organization, the Al-Mustafa Welfare Societey, by the father of one of our patients, shows scenes from our work in Karachi. From here, our senior surgeon Prof. Ashraf Ganatra treats cleft children from poorest families. He operates the children from Karachi at the Al Mustafa Medical Center. In order to reach the many needy families living outside the city, he also regularly heads out to local provincial hospitals to treat cleft patients there.

As a baby, Dat fell victim to an unqualified surgery. Probably inexperienced doctors severed important arteries during his palate surgery in Vietnam. The result: a large hole in the palate that massively affects the boy's life. We brought him to Germany to get reconstructive surgery. An individual case that due to the financial and human cost must remain an exception. In this video, we want to draw attention to the risks of "safari surgery" as opposed to sustainable development aid.