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//'Changing Children's Lives'// Mission to Mbale, Uganda: February 9-17, 2012



[|Changing Children's Lives] is a non-profit group that was started in 2007 by Dr. Mark Weinstein and his daughter Ellyn. Dr. Weinstein is a highly esteemed and experienced surgeon from New Haven, CT, and is board certified as a general surgeon and plastic surgeon. From [|CCL]'s mission statement:

//Our main purpose is to send qualified medical teams to developing nations in order to benefit children, usually through plastic surgical procedures. These treatments are usually for cleft lip and palate, congenital and traumatic facial deformities and burns, and also include congenital hand surgery and various other operations. // 

//Our mission is to offer life-altering surgeries to children of developing nations. These cost-free reconstructive operations not only serve the host country’s youth, but also give the host country’s medical professionals the opportunity to improve their skills and expertise. Our hope is that through this experience, the health care staff of the participating nations will eventually become self-sufficient in performing surgeries of this nature. Changing Children’s Lives is also committed to establishing strong international relationships. We believe that this ambassadorship, as well as our hands-on approach to health education, will ultimately advance the quality of medical care worldwide. //

Since 2007, Dr. Weinstein has led medical missions literally around the globe, including: Pereira, Columbia; Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand; Guangzhou, China; Nha Trang, Vietnam; and Mbale, Uganda. Hundreds of individuals, predominately children, have benefited from the work that he and his colleagues have performed. As per CCL's goal to "establish strong international relationships", they have visited several locations more than once, and are headed back to Mbale, Uganda fifteen months after their initial visit to the same city in November, 2010.

In addition to the full array of General Surgeons, Plastic Surgeons, Anesthesiologists, Pediatricians, OR Nurses, Recovery Room Nurses, Residents, and Medical Students, there are several professionals included in this trip that have not traveled with CCL before. The first is a small group of doctors that specialize in reproductive health services. One of these specialists is my good friend Dr. Jon Black, who is currently a second year Obstetrics and Gynecology Resident at Yale University Hospital. The second new initiative in this Mbale mission is the inclusion of two American school teachers: Mr. Robert Schroeder, Director of Middle and Upper Schools at [|Hamden Hall Country Day School] in Hamden, CT; and me, Pete Lingenheld, MS Science teacher, 6th Grade Coed Soccer Coach, and 8th Grade Advisor at [|Wooster School]in Danbury, CT.

As a conclusory statement on this introductory page, I'd like to make something clear. It is an enormous privilege to be included amongst such distinguished company as the medical professionals that will make this trip possible. Their participation in this mission represents a virtually unquantifiable contribution of skill, time, energy, physical and monetary resources, and goodwill to people, mostly children, that they have never met before. What they will do on this trip, and what Dr. Weinstein and his colleagues have done many times over, is representative to me of the cutting edge of human generosity, empathy, optimism, and global awareness.