Sister Shoba Lonappan Shares Her Patients’ Sorrows, and Their Smiles

The Lonappan family could not afford to send their daughter Shoba to school. Of all the countless indignities of poverty, that one stung the most. Growing up without an education would all but condemn her to likewise live her entire life from meal to meal, with no time or energy to pursue something greater.

To free her from the cycle of poverty, they were willing to pay the highest price imaginable.

They sent Shoba to an orphanage so she would be guaranteed a place in school.

But Shoba never let her parents go. She kept her memories of them in her heart always and worked hard every day to make good on the promise they saw in her.

More than a decade later, she graduated high school singularly driven to comfort others in their times of need.

She immediately enrolled in nursing school.

Once certified, she received a placement on the cleft ward at Smile Train partner Jubilee Mission Medical College Hospital. She had little experience with clefts, but knew at once that she had found her home.

“I saw the sorrow of the mothers of these children, so I developed a mindset to partake in their sorrow”, she explained. “Helping them find treatment came automatically to me”.

Seventeen years later, Shoba’s passion for healing every patient has never wavered. Though she has risen to become the ward’s Head Sister and head of female surgery, she still spends her days on the front lines: placing IVs, counselling parents, helping anxious children face surgery head-on. Whenever a child needs urgent medical attention, she ensures that they get it.

In this way, she has personally helped between 10 and 15 thousand children smile and thrive with life-changing cleft surgeries.

Shoba embodies Smile Train’s “teach a person to fish” model of providing passionate, talented healthcare workers around the world the training and equipment they need to make world-class, free cleft care available to their neighbours in need.

As we celebrated our 25th anniversary this year in New York, we could think of no more worthy recipient of our Teach a Woman to Fish Award than the heroic nurse in Thrissur, India, whose kindness, devotion, perseverance, and passion for education epitomises everything Smile Train stands for and strives to be.

I am part of a team of incredible doctors and staff at the Charles Pinto Centre, founded by the dearly missed Dr Hirji Adenwalla at the Jubilee Mission Hospital. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to help these children and parents. I am grateful to the directors and staff of the Jubilee Mission Hospital for making this work possible. I am so grateful to everybody on my team, who makes this work possible.… 

For me, the most rewarding part of my work is meeting the children after they have recovered from the surgery. They are happy and smiling, just like a healthy child should. And so are their parents. For me, this is the best feeling in the world. 

Smile Train has been a wonderful partner. You help us give these patients the care they need. You help us “teach a person to fish”. These children come to our clinic helpless and afraid. With your support, they leave ready to integrate into society and enjoy a brighter, happier future. 

Your generosity is changing lives here in Thrissur and all over the world. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

- Shoba Lonappan, from her video acceptance speech