Two weeks after her training, Nguta was told that one of the families in her neighborhood had a baby born with a cleft lip, named Brighton. Right away, she knew she would have to approach the family cautiously, she said.

Brighton’s mother, Fridah Mueni, didn’t understand why her baby had been born this way, and said this confusion caused her to resent her child. Some in the village theorized it was a punishment, possibly because she had laughed at someone else who had a baby with the same condition. Tired of shouldering the blame, Mueni said she began to hide her baby from members of the community and became reclusive, only leaving the house to attend church.

Young cleft lip patient Brighton Mueni at his family home in the village of Uvileni, Makueni County.

Myths and misinformation are pervasive around conditions such as cleft — including claiming that bewitchment and adultery are responsible for the condition, said Dr. Esther Njoroge-Muriithi, vice president and regional director for Smile Train’s programs in Africa. This can complicate the organization’s work, making community outreach harder.

When the organization’s staff members visited one of their partner hospitals in western Kenya, they were told that, in some cases, traditional healers removed the stitches after they have performed the surgeries because of the belief that if a child was given this condition, it was for some spiritual reason, according to Njoroge-Muriithi. Because of this, a portion of Smile Train’s work includes educating the population about the condition. This includes training community health volunteers such as Nguta on misconceptions, so that they can then share this information with their communities.