Greetings from Tanzania,
It’s been an exhausting, inspiring, eye-opening 10-day visit and I am writing to show you how your generosity is making a difference in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Income per capita in Tanzania is $652 a year. In the U.S. it’s $55,000. The average Tanzanian lives on $1.78 a day. But the people we help are much poorer. We visited a patient’s home that was made of sticks and mud. The father makes less than a dollar a day – when he can find work. They could never afford the $250 treatment that cured their son’s clubfoot.
Over the past 10 days at burn wards, blindness clinics, and clubfoot camps, we’ve met and seen hundreds of patients along with many heroic surgeons, nurses and hospital administrators.
When we asked patients how far they had come, they told us 50, 100, 250+ miles.  When we asked how long they had been waiting for surgery, they would shrug and tell us 5, 10, 15 years.
Imagine watching your child remain crippled, disfigured or blind because you couldn’t afford a simple surgery that cost a few hundred dollars.
In all the countries we work in, the poor have virtually no access to even basic surgery. The only way these kids will receive surgery is if someone helps them.  So they wait and hope and pray that one day help will come along.  Most of them wait their entire lives for help that never comes.
If our free surgery programs didn’t exist – and if generous people like you didn’t help us – more than 100,000 children and adults would still be crippled, disfigured and blind.
But through our unique strategy of empowering local doctors through financial aid, free training and equipment, we are helping provide tens of thousands of life-saving surgeries for very little money. Just $250 to cure clubfoot.  $300 to save a severely burned child.  And $300 to restore the eyesight of a blind child or adult.
The surgeons and nurses we support are excellent. They’re well-trained, experienced and their commitment to helping the poor is inspiring.  With a little support from us, they can do a lot.
Of all the extraordinary moments we experienced on this trip, here are two I will never forget.
Meet the Lugenge family. 
The father, Paulo, is legally blind and has been his entire life.  He can see only about 5 feet in front of him. Somehow, he works as a farmer and makes $6 a week.
On his lap is his son Exaud, who was born completely blind. His wife, Leticia, has their daughter LuLu on her lap and she too was born completely blind. The entire family traveled 310 miles to reach our partner hospital after seeing an ad offering free surgery for the poor. You can see the desperation in the eyes of the mother.  This is most likely their only chance to save their children from a lifetime of blindness.
An hour after I took their photo, our partner surgeon, Dr. Sonia Vaitha, operated on both children.  The surgery took less than 15 minutes per eye.
I took this photo at 8:00 am the next morning.

The parents are VERY nervous – what if the surgery didn’t work?
What if our children remain blind for their entire lives?
How will they survive?
 

 
Dr. Sonia gently removes the bandages from the son’s eyes first. He squints and he squirms. His eyes recoil at the bright sunlight which is a good sign – it means the surgery worked.  The cloudy lenses which prevent light from entering the eye and cause blindness have been replaced with new, artificial lenses that are working perfectly.
Little by little, as he acclimates to the light, the boy slowly opens his eyes and starts to look around as he sees the world for the very first time. He looks up and down, left to right.
 
When he hears the clicking of my camera he looks straight at my lens.  He is looking right at me – he can SEE!
 
Dr. Sonia puts her fist out to the boy, and he sees it and gives her a fist-pump.  Another satisfied customer.  The father is beaming. The mother is  crying.
Their son has just been saved from a lifetime of blindness.
Now it is LuLu’s turn. Notice how her brother is watching closely.

Like her brother, LuLu recoils as the sunlight floods her eyeballs – the surgery worked!  She opens her eyes and gasps. She looks up towards the sky with a huge smile on her face. Her mother wipes away the tears from her eyes.
I put out my hand with a finger extended and she reaches out and grabs it.
She can see perfectly.  LuLu can’t stop smiling. Her mother can’t stop crying.  LuLu starts softly singing a song – we ask what it is, and they tell us it is a religious hymm, she is thanking God. We shake our heads – this girl is just 3 years old.  LuLu’s beautiful song reminds me of an American hymn…

 
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; 
Was blind, but now I see…

There were other children and adults who got their eyesight back that magical morning.
While we watched Dr. Sonia take bandages off other children, LuLu and her brother sat quietly huddled with their parents on the sidelines.  When they weren’t looking, I took pictures of them smiling and hugging each other. Singing and laughing.
A family portrait of a blind farmer and his loyal wife, who saved their children from a lifetime of blindness and suffering.  And it would never have happened if folks like you didn’t support a program like ours.
I hope these two miracles help you appreciate the impact of your support. We are helping children and adults no one else will.
Thank you for helping to make this all possible.
With gratitude,
Brian Mullaney
Co-Founder of Smile Train and WonderWork
brian@wonderwork.org