Oscar Indian Girl to Flip Coin in Wimbledon Games

As a rare honor, 11 year-old Pinki Sonkar will travel from the by-lanes of Mirzapur to the grass court of Wimbledon to flip the coin for the men single final on July 7th 2013 at the center court. She also get to meet the two finalist.

Pinki was born with a congenital deformity called cleft lip. And her story has earlier taken her to an Oscar night at Los Angels. Emmy-winning director Megan Mylan's 39-minutes documentary, "Smile Pinki", on her journey from social embarrassment and humiliation to accept (post-surgery) won an Oscar for the Best Short Documentary in 2008.

Pinki, however, has Smile Train to thank - the world's largest cleft lif and palate non-profit organization. Smile Train has been selected as the charity partner at this year's Wimbledon. Pinki is one of their most well-known paitients.

In 2007, she was given the opportunity to receive a life-changing free cleft repair surgery. Dr Subodh Kumar Singh, who performed Pinki's cleft surgery in 2007,will be traveling with her London. British High Commissioner to India Sir James Bevan will host a send-off dinner for her on July 2.

Smile Train India cheif Satish Karla told to TOI "The event will bring the issue of cleft lip in front of the whole world. Wimbledon finals are watched by 300million persons across world. At present Smile Train conducts 125000 surgeries a year  with $70million raised through charity. In India alone, 50000 children undergo this corrective surgery but there is a backlog of 10 lakh. Hopefully, we will be able to raise more funds to increase the surgeries in India to 70000 annually and 150000 globally."

Dr Singh has told TOI after the Oscars: "This is one of the most powerful films ever made on medical issues" Cleft has become a major cause of children falling out of school, unable to bear the humiliation of their classmates. It mars the personality of the child who suffers from tremendously low self-esteem. They don't get get education or good jobs"

Dr. Singh's hospital is the world's biggest cleft surgery hospital, being run by Smile Train. In the past five years it has conducted nearly 20000 cleft  repair surgeries with 100% success rate. Each 45minutes  to 2hours surgery costs Smile Train Rs.10000. Source TOI