International news

Bangladesh

To coincide with  Brian Sommerlad's recent visit to Bangladesh, the team in Dhaka led by Associate Professor Md Rabiul Karim Khan (Papon) had organised a day-long workshop for young surgeons. There was a programme of lectures on surgery, speech therapy and orthodontics. There were also  some locally made models of a cleft lip and cleft palate on which surgeons could practice repair.


    

Nepal

In May, David Sainsbury, cleft surgeon in Newcastle, is making an exploratory visit to Kathmandu at the invitation of Shankar Rai who leads the cleft team there. It is hoped that this may be the beginning of a partnership between the Newcastle and Nepal teams. David will assess how CLEFT can support the development of the centre there.

Cleft 2022

The CLEFT 22 International Conference will be held in Edinburgh in July 2022 and CLEFT will have a large presence of team members at the conference. Several members will be presenting papers or taking part in workshops while other trustees will be helping on CLEFT’s conference stand. We hope to raise the profile of our charity and to foster connections between other organisations whose aims align with our own.

CLEFT is supporting a visit from clinicians from Bangladesh and Iraq to the conference. This is a unique educational opportunity as well as being a fantastic platform for the clinicians to present their research and to have their work recognised by the international community.

Fundraising news

Although there are no large-scale challenge events to report from March there have been some sterling solo projects which have raised money for CLEFT.

Gwyneth Sommerlad continues to persuade her friends to donate their preloved or unused clothes to be sold on eBay and recently raised another £459.

Yvonne Wren, a member of the Research Steering Committee, held a cabaret evening in Bristol and raised an impressive total of £1400.

Finally, Izzy Would made then sold candles as part of her school project. The final amount raised is expected to be between £400 and £500.

   

Forthcoming events

Ride London 29th May 2022

The RideLondon-Essex 100 is a unique opportunity to ride 100 miles on traffic-free roads through the heart of London and neighbouring Essex. It will start and finish in the centre of the capital, with 60 miles of rolling roads through some of Essex’s most beautiful countryside and villages in between. 

We’re delighted to report that CLEFT has nearly filled its places for Ride London but there is just one place left so snap this up if you wish to take part in this exciting event!

London to Brighton 11th September 2022

Alternatively sign up for the London to Brighton ride which also has CLEFT places to fill. This is a 55-mile route which ends in the beautiful and dramatic town of Brighton. Find a friend and register for this event now!

Run for CLEFT

CLEFT has places in three national half marathon events and last year the runners in the Royal Parks Half Marathon managed to raise nearly £5000 between them. It was one highest figure raised in any one event of 2021.



The three half marathons are:
The Great North Run (11^th September 2022)
Great Bristol Run (18^th September 2022)
Royal Parks Half Marathon (9^th October 2022) - only 3 places available still.

Chamber concert for CLEFT

A professional chamber concert is being held at All Saints Church, 63 Church Street, Isleworth, London TW7 6BE on Sunday 29^th May at 3 pm. The programme will consist of Percy Grainger’s Molly on the Shore for String Quartet, Dvorak’s ‘American’ String Quartet and Elgar’s Piano Quintet. The concert will be followed by refreshments and tickets will be available to buy from the CLEFT website in the coming weeks.