Aminata is a ten year old Malian girl who was always teased in school for her cleft lip. Her parents decided to take her out of school because of the humiliation she was enduring on a daily basis. They put her in a Koranic school so that she could learn how to pray but Aminata was deprived of the education that she could have had in a regular school.
Aminata's grandmother brought her to the hospital for her operation. They came by bus from the Mopti region, over six hours away.
When the Global Smile post op team invited Aminata's grandmother in to see her after the operation, she was so shocked and excited that she left the room shaking. She came back in when she was more composed, with tears of joy in her eyes and an immense smile on her face. She gave Aminata a big hug. Aminata will return to a school where she can get a full education