FACES (Foundation for the Advancement of Cleft Education and Services

FACES, The Foundation for the Advancement of Cleft Education and Services, founded in 2001, has performed hundreds of cleft lip and palate surgeries on medically isolated patients. Providing cleft surgery is just the tip of the iceberg for our program – we also provide speech therapy over the Internet, social services, dental care, orthodontia and other general healthcare and family support. We are adamant that our program involves many local partners at our project sites: we believe that partnering with local organizations provides exponential added benefit to the community, the families, and the children with cleft. We have spent the last six years building our program in Lambayeque, Peru, in the northern region of the country. We have many close partners, one of the main ones is the Lions Club. The Lambayeque women’s Lions Club (Ciudad Evocadora Lambayeque) has been working with us for years to find cleft patients from rural regions. They help find, transport, house, and care for the patients once they arrive at the hospital. We also work with Portland-area Lions Clubs on developing new projects: we are working with these Lions Clubs to create a regional sight and hearing screening program and referral system in northern Peru.FACE’s mission is to model comprehensive, high quality care for indigent, medically isolated patients with cleft lip and palate deformities – beyond surgery alone – in a locally sustainable manner. FACES is one of the few international cleft teams that is endorsed by the American Cleft Palate Association. Our goal is that every child dealing with the stigma of cleft lip and palate should be able to obtain surgery, no matter their financial situation or geographic barriers. Treating cleft lip and palate and facial anomalies is not easy, as it requires continuous follow-up care long after surgery.