Le Thi Trang was pregnant when she learned that her son would be born with a cleft lip and palate. Her husband’s family asked her to terminate the pregnancy. She said no.
She had no money for specialized surgery, but she had something else: the certainty that her son deserved to be born. And nine months later, at Nguyen Dinh Chieu General Hospital in Vinh Long, 90 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City, the answer she had been waiting for appeared, though she did not know it yet.
A group of 58 doctors, dentists, and nurses arrived from Japan, as it has done every year since 1993. It is the Japanese Cleft Palate Foundation, led by Professor Nagato Natsume, who already considers Vietnam his second home. Over 34 years, they have operated on more than 3,000 people, always free of charge. This year, nearly 50 families crowded into a hospital corridor just for a chance.
Trang’s baby was one of those chosen. “I am deeply grateful that these doctors came and operated on me free of charge”, she said through tears. Natsume sums it up this way: they want more children to grow up happy to have been born. Thirty-four years later, they are still keeping that promise, one smile at a time.