Harvest is an 11-year-old boy in Nigeria. He’s teased at school, and his father left him and his mother — all because of his cleft lip and palate.

Harvest is just one of an estimated 360,000 people in Africa born with clefts. That’s why Loma Linda University, Adventist Health International and the Smile Train — a nonprofit organization that is committed to eradicating the problem of cleft lips and palates — joined forces to help children who face this problem.

From Feb. 13 to 15, LLU, AHI and the Smile Train sponsored the first-ever Pan African Congress on Cleft Lip and Palate, held in Ibadan, Nigeria.

“Loma Linda University and Adventist Health International were delighted to be partners in this worthy endeavor,” shares Richard Hart, M.D., DrPH, chancellor of LLU and president of AHI.

According to Smile Train’s vice president DeLois Greenwood, the Smile Train only helped 500 children in Africa out of the 35,000 they have served worldwide last year.

“When we wanted to expand our programs in Africa and met with Dr. Hart,” explains Greenwood, “we realized that LLU and AHI might be our spark that helps us reach the medical professionals because they have the network, resources and reputation. And I daresay, had it just been the Smile Train, participants may not have come. But the fact there’s an affiliation with such a famous institution, the surgeons were quite interested.”

Linda D’Antonio, Ph.D., professor, School of Medicine, and a member of the medical advisory board of the Smile Train, and Tomi Daniel, BL, a lawyer in Nigeria and wife of Danjuma Daniel, business manager of AHI Nigeria, were essential in planing the event.

Last year, D’Antonio and Tomi Daniel met at an AHI meeting in Loma Linda. D’Antonio explained to Daniel how she was told clefts didn’t exist in Nigeria. So Daniel gladly accepted photos of children before and after they had their clefts repaired. Daniel took them back to Nigeria and showed the photos around town, asking if people knew anyone with this problem. The result was overwhelming. Daniel found numerous people with clefts.

After discovering the problem with clefts in Nigeria, the next step involved several months of intense planning for the first-ever Pan African Congress on Cleft Lip and Palate (PACCLIP).

PACCLIP was deemed a huge success, and throughout the course of three days, about 150 health professionals participated in lectures, interactive seminars and surgical videotaped demonstrations in order to establish a sustainable cleft-care program in Africa.

“On the last day of the meeting, they didn’t want to leave. So they had an impromptu meeting, and what was born was the Pan African Cleft Lip and Palate Association,” says D’Antonio. “That will be a high in my career that will be very hard to ever top. And Smile Train, Loma Linda University and Adventist Health International can be very proud of the stepping stone that they provided, resulting in this association for the continent.”