Padmavathi – A dream became reality!

The story of Padmavathi is the story of a strong girl. It is a story which says much about what the CCI aid project actually delivers. From a cleft-child with no future to one of the best trained, pretty young women.

The story of Padmavathi Devella, who came to the Cleft-centre in Hyderabad at the age of four, is the story of an unusually strong girl. And it is also the story of that which the CCI can deliver as an aid project.

The story of Padmavathi Devella, who came to the Cleft-centre in Hyderabad at the age of four, is the story of an unusually strong girl. And it is also the story of that which the CCI can deliver as an aid project.
Padmavathi was born in 1998 - with a medial facial cleft which disfigured her and made normal speech and social development impossible. Her father left the family immediately after Padmavathi's birth and the mother was completely out of her depth. Padmavathi lived with her grandparents, who one day heard of the possibility of a free operation for their grandchild. "When I saw her for the first time," remembers Prof. Sailer, "she was a small girl with huge beautiful, dark eyes. She was suffering from fronto-nasal dysplasia (midline cleft syndrome) with double nasal processes but I knew that once we operated she would have every chance to develop very well."


 

So Padmavathi came to the Cleft-centre, where our team of highly specialised doctors initially closed the clefts of the palate and the upper lip and corrected the nasal defect. As a result, Padmavathi could soon eat and smile just like other children. And finally, she started to learn to speak. She was helped by speech therapists and orthodontists with whom she then stayed for treatment over many years following the first operations.

 

Padmavathi learned very quickly. She simply absorbed what one taught her. And she was, after all the physical and mental pain which she had suffered, an incredibly happy child. In 2009, after two further operations, she attended the Krishna-Talent-School in Hyderabad, a school associated with the Cleft-centre: the school helps cleft-children like Padmavathi to take their state school leaving certificates.
At the age of 15 Padmavathi had her last operation with Prof. Sailer; a 7-hour intervention which turned this poor young girl, one of Indian’s "untouchables", into a pretty young woman. One cannot even see the scarring on her nose.
 

She also enjoyed learning with others. Right from the start she was one of the best pupils. Not only did she get an excellent school leaving certificate but in 2014 received a scholarship from the Swiss JAF Foundation which enabled her to attend the Ross High School in the Hamptons, New York. This grant provided extra special help in matching Padmavathi's talents and her incredible potential. She now has the chance of gaining an academic degree - something an Indian girl, in particular one from a family in which all other relatives are illiterate, cannot normally even begin to dream of. When Prof. Sailer now hears of these successes today or visits Padmavathi, he always says with a smile: "There you are! I knew that would happen all along!"

This small girl, whose chances for a good, self-determined life were incomparably small, suddenly has the opportunities given to hardly any Indian children. It is her dream to become a surgeon, following in the footsteps of her role model, Prof. Sailer, and help children with disfigurements. And while we continue working on helping as many children as possible, Padmavathi, now a pretty young woman, is making use of these opportunities. We wish her all the best and are convinced that she will make the very best of that offered to her, of her future and of her life, in whatever she wishes to do.