UI is Celebrating 30 years Mending Faces!

Volunteer and baby The charm of a smile, the pleasure of a whistle, the easy flow of speech. Children born with facial deformities are robbed of these functions of the mouth — functions we take for granted.

Uplift Internationale conducts Operation Taghoy (a Filipino word for whistle) — an annual mission to the Philippines to provide reparative surgical care to poor, rural children born with facial deformities.

Since its inception in 1989, Uplift Internationale has:

  • Provided over 1,800 mending care surgeries primarily for cleft lips/palates at no-cost to children in the Philippines
  • Over 700 volunteer medical and outreach personnel have participated in 24 annual medical missions
  • Provided over 200 mending care surgeries (24 per year) at the Taghoy Facial Cleft Clinic at Ormoc
  • Volunteers are self funded and responsible for their own travel, meals, and lodging expenses.
  • The surgery allows these children to move from the shadows of society back into the light of the community.
  • The care is provided at no cost to the children or their impoverished families.