Smile Train, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has held a capacity-building workshop for journalists to intensify awareness and support for Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate patients in Nigeria.

Smile Train is the World’s largest cleft-focused organisation which provides training, funding and resources to empower local medical professionals in over 70 countries to provide 100 percent free, safe, timely and comprehensive cleft surgeries and other forms of essential cleft care in their own communities.

Cleft lip and cleft palate are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth does not form properly during pregnancy. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every three minutes, a baby is born with Cleft Lip and Palate somewhere around the world.

In her background presentation in Abuja on Monday, the PR and Communications Manager of Smile Train in Africa, Emily Manjeru said the two-day workshop was organised to better equip journalists’ understanding of the stigma and discrimination related to cleft lip and palate differences and also help them identify their role towards positive and responsible presentation as well as create a platform for journalists to develop an action plan to address the education gap in Nigeria.

She revealed that in the last 21 years, Smile Train has supported safe and quality cleft care of over 1.5 million children in over 70 countries of the world and has covered 41 countries in Africa. In Nigeria, she said over 30,000 patients have been treated since 2008.

Also speaking, Dr Amina Abubakar, a plastic surgeon with the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Abuja, said that there are no known causes of cleft conditions but however mentioned that some of the identified causes are related to genetics and environmental factors such as malnutrition, smoking and intake of alcohol by mothers during pregnancy.

Dr Abubakar cited cases where cleft patients are treated like slaves and restricted from accessing medical care for beliefs that they are cursed, which has instigated cultural practices like stigmatisation, banishment, abuse, and in some cases, starvation to death as commonly found among localities of people living with the cleft conditions.

Cleft conditions she said, come with speech and hearing problems, breathing issues and inability to thrive among others. She however said the conditions can be treated through surgeries as offered free of charge by Smile Train, and surgery cases record almost 100 per cent success stories.

Delivering a goodwill message, the Chairman of the FCT Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Emmanuel Ogbeche thanked Smile Train for the opportunity and for developing the capacity of journalists to be up to speed in reporting the cases of cleft accurately, especially as the media in Nigeria has the challenge of capacity building.

“Nigeria has a huge deficit in terms of health budgeting and when organisations such as Smile Train fill in the gap, it helps us in providing affordable and quality health delivery to our people in dire need.

“This is the NUJ saying thank you for what you’re doing. We hope that we continue to engage and have more journalists participate in this sort of training so that we can have journalists that are qualified in reporting and spread advocacy and awareness.”

Mr Ogbeche therefore encouraged the journalists to take the training very seriously to become advocates and pace-setters in reporting cleft conditions and avail opportunities for treatment to Nigerians who do not have access to treatment.