Tata Global Beverages and Tata Trusts Announce Partnership with Smile Train

Tata Global Beverages and Tata Trusts are partnering with Smile Train, the international children's cleft charity, to raise awareness and extend support for cleft lip and palate repair and comprehensive cleft care. Over 170,000 (26,000 in India alone) children in the developing world are born with cleft lip and/or palate every year. Most cannot afford the surgery and face social isolation. They cannot speak or eat properly and in some circumstances aren’t allowed to attend school. Cleft repair surgery, however, is simple, and the transformation is immediate. Smile Train is an international children’s charity with a sustainable approach to cleft care. Smile Train’s sustainable model provides training, funding and resources to empower local doctors in 85+ developing countries to provide 100 per cent free cleft repair surgery and comprehensive cleft care in their own communities.

Tata Global Beverages and Tata Trusts are together contributing US $ 1 million to Smile Train. To add to this contribution, Tetley is also running a digital campaign called, the ‘Tetley Smile Challenge’ across the UK, Australia, US and Canada to raise awareness among consumers about Smile Train and invite their participation.

"Smile Train is extremely proud to partner with Tata Global Beverages and Tata Trusts. This important partnership will help provide new smiles and the opportunity for new lives for 4,000 children with clefts. As we expand our efforts in the developing world and build capacity through our sustainable model; we look forward to continuing to change the world one smile at a time with the invaluable support from this partnership,” said Susannah Schaefer, CEO, Smile Train.

In India, Tata Global Beverages will further build on this partnership by using its unique ‘Gaon Chalo’ initiative to spread awareness about cleft lip and palate repair. This will help the initiative reach nearly 60 per cent of the rural population.

Ajoy Misra, MD & CEO of Tata Global Beverages said, “Tata Global Beverages’ vision is to create magical beverage moments and a smile on a child’s face is certainly magical. We are very happy to be partnering with Smile Train on this initiative. Through this partnership, we hope to positively impact many thousands of children and bring alive Tata Global Beverages’ ethos of giving back to community. For many years, our tea brands have brought many a smile to our consumers and with this partnership, we now have the opportunity to take it beyond the consumer and create positive community impact as well.”

Speaking on behalf of Tata Trusts, R Venkataramanan, Managing Trustee said, “We are privileged to partner with Smile Train. The barriers created by untreated cleft lip and palate have major consequences on a child’s health. Through this partnership we hope to play a catalytic role in improving health outcomes.”