F ID I C H A RI T Y An Operation Smile Honduras team during a recent FIDI OSH Mission GRACIAS Y HASTA PRONTO With just a few weeks to go before FIDI hands the fundraising reins back to Operation Smile Honduras, FIDI Charity Committee member and OSH spokesperson Bernie Villars, pays a moving tribute to the FIDI community and makes one last plea for a final fundraising push F BERNIE VILLARS, SPOKESPERSON FOR OPERATION SMILE HONDURAS 20 FF290 pp20-23 Charity.indd 20 or the past four years, the FIDI communitys donations will have touched the lives of 300children. FIDI Affiliates can be very proud of this beautiful project you have all been a part of over this time. Operation Smile Honduras (OSH) thanks each and every one of you; the impact of this action goes beyond the 300 children it has changed the lives of their families and communities. This is a bittersweet moment: on one hand, OSH is extremely grateful for all the amazing support we have received from the FIDI community. On the other, its time for another, very deserving charity to take our place in FIDIs fundraising efforts, receiving the many benefits that your organisation has given to us. I would like to take this opportunity not only to thankyou, but also to give a little more insight into what each donation means to the children in Honduras. My country is one with great natural resources and amazing places to visit beaches, mountains, Mayan ruins and small colonial towns. Many of these places remain untouched and steeped in ancient traditions. It is in these small towns that we find most of our patients noble, simple people who, despite their limited economic resources, are welcoming to strangers and eager to share a cup of fresh coffee, which they have grown outside their home. I have struggled to find the right words to express how it feels when you see a parent hand their child with a cleft lip or palate malformation to the nurses before surgery. The look in their tearful eyes a mixture of frustration and hope while they wait for however long it takes right outside the doors of the operating rooms. I have been lucky to sit with many parents WWW. F I D I . OR G 13/03/2019 11:36 FIDI A