Arianne de Jong, MdM Netherlands director
The members of MdM international network drafted the Operation Smile charter in 2011. It sets the goals shared by all MdM associations, in every country of operation.
The annual meeting day of Operation Smile was held last December, a continuation of those organized since 2011. The aim was to present the activities and challenges of the different missions, to discuss the quality of practices and to participate in specialized workshops. Arianne was willing to take the time to answer our questions about the position, operation and prospects of Operation Smile in Netherlands .
Opération Sourire will soon celebrate its 5th anniversary and has become an essential programme for MdM Netherlands:
MdM Netherlands organizes 5 or 6 missions per year, based on partnerships with health professionals in Bangladesh, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone:
We meet children in other programmes but none of them are specifically dedicated to children:
In the Netherlands, OS is mainly but not exclusively funded by L’Oréal . Fundraising events are organized regularly:
We still need more field practice before we can design an advocacy strategy but it is one of our objectives in the coming years
MdM international network appears to develop an active cooperation
Whenever it is possible, we try not to reduce our campaigns to a « give back a smile » message which is already efficient but we try to tell an MdM story
I went on the field for the first evaluations and missions and I loved it ! Operation Sourire, it’s my baby… It’s a programme where you can do so much within 2 weeks !
I hope and I believe that the OS future will be based on the development of the network and the maintained funding by L’Oréal