کودکان گل های بهشت هستند
ماشومان د جنت ګلونه دي
CHILD HEALTH CARE THAT GOES THE DISTANCE
At our hospital in Kabul, that belief shapes everything. Every newborn delivered, every child treated, every surgeon trained: it is all part of a steady commitment to give Afghanistan’s children the care they deserve. Millions of children across this country are still waiting for that care. For the ones we reach — through our hospital, our mobile clinics, our crisis response — it changes everything.
From the first breath
The first hours and days of a child’s life are among the most medically critical. Our hospital in Kabul provides dedicated care for newborns, including a neonatal unit where premature and critically ill infants receive the kind of attentive, skilled support that simply does not exist in most of Afghanistan.
But care can only help the children who can be reached. Afghanistan is one of the most difficult countries in the world to navigate, with remote mountain villages, vast desert regions, and provinces where roads barely exist. Our team responds to crises, runs free mobile clinics, and draws children from all 34 provinces through a network of hospital professionals and community relationships nurtured over twenty years of outreach — going to extraordinary lengths to reach families in places where a specialist has never set foot.
And for children whose needs require more, families make the journey to our hospital in Kabul, where the full resources of a skilled surgical team are waiting. For a child with a cleft lip growing up in a remote valley, one of these pathways is the only reason surgery ever becomes a possibility. These children are the lucky ones. So many others remain beyond reach.
Beyond the neonatal period, the hospital’s Afghan team provides pediatric care for children who need it most: medical treatment, restorative surgery, and follow-up for patients who have traveled from across the country to receive care they cannot access closer to home.
Care that changes a child’s life
Since 2006, in partnership with Smile Train, our hospital has provided free surgery to more than 15,224 patients living with cleft deformities.
For many of these children, a cleft lip or palate has meant difficulty eating, speaking, and belonging. Surgery changes that. At our hospital, it is free, performed by trained Afghan surgeons.
And the work is growing: the team is now expanding the program to include dedicated speech and nutritional therapy for cleft patients, building on what surgery alone cannot do.
Smile Train’s partnership also funds the training of Afghan plastic surgeons, meaning this work grows more self-sustaining with each passing year. For a closer look, visit our Critical Care page.
