New York City Artist Devon Rodriguez Joins Smile Train to Support Children with Clefts

In November 2025, Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft charity, invited Devon to Medellín, Colombia, to put that gift to the test. This time, his subjects understood the deeper meaning of his catchphrase — “Keep smiling” — as few others do.

The Reality Behind Clefts

Children with clefts learn the truth about smiles early.

Many people think clefts only affect how someone looks. In reality, babies with clefts often cannot nurse, putting them at serious risk of malnutrition and even death. Those who survive infancy often still struggle to speak, breathe, and hear.

On top of the medical challenges, many face relentless bullying and social isolation from classmates, neighbors, and sometimes even family members.

That’s why timely cleft surgery and ongoing treatment are absolutely life-changing — and why Smile Train partners with local medical professionals to make this care possible around the world.

Smile Train’s Local, Sustainable Model of Cleft Care

Unlike other cleft charities that fly in outside medical teams on short-term missions, Smile Train equips, and empowers 20,000+ local healthcare workers across more than 75 countries to provide high-quality cleft care in their own communities.

This model enables Smile Train to:

• Make free cleft care available year-round — not just when a visiting team is in town.
• Schedule treatment around patients’ needs, not doctors’ travel plans.
• Strengthen local health systems by providing regional hospitals with essential equipment and training.
• Build long-term trust between providers and families and reduce misunderstandings based on language or cultural differences.
• Treat the whole child with comprehensive cleft care beyond their primary surgery, including:
  • Nutritional support
  • Speech therapy
  • Orthodontic care
  • Dental care
  • Psychological counseling
  • Follow-up surgeries

Devon’s visit gave him an up-close look at how this model transforms lives.

A Front-Row Seat to Cleft Surgery

At Clínica Noel, Smile Train’s partner in Medellín, Devon scrubbed into the operating room to witness cleft surgery up close. He watched as the local surgical team carefully treated a baby with a cleft, knowing that this procedure would open the door to safer feeding, clearer speech, and a healthier future.

Then came the moment no one forgets: when a mother sees her baby after cleft surgery for the first time.

“I’ll never forget the look in their eyes,” Devon said.

Meeting Santi: A Dancer Who Refuses to Quit

Devon’s journey continued beyond the hospital into the city’s neighborhoods, where he met patients and families. First, he met 12-year-old Santiago, or Santi.

Santi is a gifted salsa dancer who moves with effortless precision, grace, and confidence. Watching him, you would never guess that only a few months earlier he had undergone significant surgery on his nose to help treat his cleft.

He dreams of one day becoming a famous judge.

Santi believes being born with a cleft has made him a fighter. With his family and his Smile Train care team backing him, he knows there is nothing he cannot achieve.

As he told Devon, “My cleft is a scar that gives me strength and bravery.”

Devon captured that hard-won resilience in a portrait that Santi and his family will cherish for the rest of their lives.

Meeting Emmanuel: An Artist Learning from an Artist

Next, Devon met Emmanuel, a 12-year-old painter who was also born with a cleft.

Devon was immediately impressed with his work. “He was such a confident artist… and his art was so much better than mine when I was his age,” he said.

Like Santi (and like Devon when he was younger), Emmanuel has used his talent to steady himself when the odds felt stacked against him. As the two artists talked, Devon offered a quick masterclass in portrait drawing, sketching Emmanuel’s likeness while sharing techniques he has spent years refining.

The sketch he left behind was more than a drawing. It was a visual reminder of all the ambition, grit, and promise contained in one young man’s smile.

How Colombia Changed Devon Rodriguez

Devon says his time in Colombia changed him forever.

A few days after returning to New York, he took to Instagram to shared his reflections with his community online:

These kids, their families, the doctors, the entire community, they reminded me what real courage looks like. What real hope looks like.

On behalf of Smile Train’s patients, partners, and staff around the world, we say thank you, Devon, for so generously sharing your time, talent, and global platform with children born with clefts.

Keep smiling.