Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has appeared in a video in support of the Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft lip and palate charity. The charity’s overriding goal is to make safe and quality treatment of cleft lip and palate accessible to the millions who cannot afford it. The actress was in London earlier on behalf of her charitable organization the Aishwarya Rai Foundation, which is involved in supporting the work of the NGO ‘Smile Train’, as an ambassador for the charity. In the video, Rai Bachchan talks about the devastating effects of clefts on the lives of children and how a simple surgery can give someone a new life. She imagines what her life might have been like if she was born with a cleft. She says: “I am Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. My life has been truly blessed but I often wonder what would have happened to me if I had a cleft lip, if my parents had abandoned me, if I never had any friends, if I could never smile, no-one should live like that, but a simple surgery can fix a cleft lip, just like that. So please, give a child not just a new smile, but a new life.” The former Miss World was photographed in a Sabyasachi dress outside 10 Downing Street ahead of a meeting with members of the Smile Train organisation. Every year, 35,000 children in India are born with clefts. Without corrective surgery, these children are condemned to a lifetime of isolation and suffering. Many are even abandoned or killed at birth. A cleft can be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that could take as little as 45 minutes and cost Rs.17,000.

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