Milestones
Milestones
Cleft Lip and Palate Program
CLAP is MJAF’s flagship healthcare initiative focused on addressing the needs of children born with cleft lip and palate conditions. The program is built on the understanding that cleft care extends beyond surgery, requiring consistent follow-up, rehabilitation, and support for both the child and their family.
From Surgery to Sustained Care
Between September 2024 and November 2025, MJAF conducted three consecutive cleft care missions. These efforts went beyond performing surgeries to include structured follow-up, revisits, and continued care, ensuring that each child receives the attention needed throughout their recovery process.
The program adopts a continuity of care approach, recognizing that successful outcomes depend on timely intervention, ongoing monitoring, and support systems that remain in place after surgery. Through CLAP, MJAF aims to provide care that is not only accessible, but also consistent and responsive to the long-term needs of the children it serves.
Looking ahead, the Foundation is working towards strengthening this approach further by building a more comprehensive model of cleft care, with an emphasis on continuity, coordination, and long-term support.
Three Missions, One Commitment
Mission 1 — September 2024
• 25 corrective surgeries (15 lip, 10 palate)
• 8 follow-up visits
Mission 2 — February 2025
• 20 new surgeries
• 12 revisits
• Delayed palate repairs and secondary intervention planning
Mission 3 — November 2025
• 37 surgeries
• 18–20 revisits
• Lip, nose, and palate revisions and speech assessments
Impact So Far
38–40 patients supported through revisits
Scope includes primary repairs, bilateral corrections, palate reconstruction, fistula repair, and revision surgeries
Primary Surgical Patients Treated
Organizations joined the cause
Total Patient Touchpoints
Lives saved in the last month
Why Follow-Up Matters
Healing, speech development, facial growth, and social integration unfold over time and require continued attention beyond the initial surgery. Structured follow-up visits allow for early identification of complications, timely interventions, and appropriate referrals where needed. They also provide an opportunity to monitor progress, guide families through each stage of recovery, and ensure that care remains consistent.
Through CLAP, follow-up is treated as an essential part of the care journey, ensuring that each child continues to receive support well beyond the surgical intervention.
Building a Center of Comprehensive Care
Learnings from recent missions have highlighted the need for a permanent centre that extends beyond periodic surgical interventions. There is a clear requirement for a structured, continuous care model that supports children and their families throughout the entire care journey.
The vision is to establish a comprehensive centre that supports children with cleft conditions from infancy through adolescence, ensuring timely diagnosis, coordinated treatment, and consistent long-term follow-up.
The centre will focus on early diagnosis and feeding support for newborns, along with structured patient data management to enable continuity of care. It will provide medical assessments to guide nutritional support and surgical planning, followed by cleft lip and palate surgeries. Post operative care will include speech and hearing support, nutritional guidance, growth monitoring, and counselling for both children and their families.
Over time, the centre is intended to expand into broader paediatric and craniofacial services, enabling a more integrated and continuous approach to care for children with complex needs.
Smiles Unite Us Foundation
Smiles Unite Us Foundation is guided by the belief that every child deserves access to care that supports their health, confidence, and ability to thrive. Its mission is to provide cleft lip and palate care to underserved children through a combination of surgical expertise, multidisciplinary support, and community engagement.
The Foundation focuses on delivering care that extends beyond surgery, supporting children in their recovery while working with local partners to strengthen long-term access and awareness.
Addressing Cleft Care in Pakistan: MJAF and Smiles Unite Us Foundation
Pakistan faces a significant burden of untreated cleft lip and palate, with thousands of children born with the condition each year. Access to specialized care remains limited, particularly in underserved areas, while social stigma and delayed treatment can affect a child’s development, education, and overall well-being.
In response, the Mohammad Jawed Akhai Foundation (MJAF), in collaboration with Smiles Unite Us Foundation, is working to improve access to quality surgical care, strengthen local healthcare capacity, and promote greater awareness. This partnership brings together shared expertise and resources to address both the medical and social impact of cleft conditions in a structured and sustainable manner.
Dr. Khurram Khan
Lead Surgeon for the Cleft Care Missions
Dr. Khurram Khan is a board certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon with advanced fellowship training in paediatric cleft and craniofacial surgery, specializing in the management of complex facial conditions in children.
A Diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he combines clinical expertise with a strong commitment to humanitarian care. As co-founder of Smiles Unite Us Foundation, Dr. Khan has led surgical missions, performed cleft procedures for underserved children, and contributed to building collaborative care models with global partners.
Al-Mustafa Welfare Society
Since 1983, Al-Mustafa Welfare Society has grown into one of Pakistan’s most established non-governmental organizations, delivering community services across healthcare, education, and social support.
In collaboration with the Mohammad Jawed Akhai Foundation (MJAF), Al-Mustafa plays a key role in enabling cleft care initiatives by facilitating patient outreach and providing access to its medical facilities for surgical procedures. This partnership supports the effective delivery of care to underserved communities.