Imphal, November 13 2009: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, hailed by many as the most beautiful woman in the world, has been announced as the first Goodwill Ambassador for Smile Train, the world's largest cleft charity.

Recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Aishwarya will now be adding one more role to her illustrious career.

She will partner with Smile Train, in association with her own charity, the Aishwarya Rai Foundation, in numerous ways to spread awareness and garner recources to help the worldwide movement.

As Goodwill Ambassador, Aishwarya will actively work to help Smile Train to provide free cleft surgery to children in 76 developing countries around the world, including India.

This initiative will help raise awareness in India and around the world to the plight of children born with cleft.

Speaking in reaction to the worldwide announcement, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan mentions, "Good has given me plenty of reasons to smile and I feel it's time to spread it around.

There are a lot of children out there who so desperately need help, but can't receive timely care because their families cannot afford this surgery or all ill educated about this condition.

Working with Smile Train, if I can make a difference in their lives, it will certainly make me feel honored and blessed." Smile Train currently has over 150 Smile Train partner hospitals in India and has performed over 200,000 surgeries there.

However, the need is great.

In India alone, over one million children await surgery and currently only 50% of children born with cleft in India ever get the care they so desperately need.

Smile Train's reach extends beyond India, with 1100 partner hospitals world wide working to tackle the daunting backlog of over 4.7 million children living with unrepaired clefts.

Smile Train Shija Cleft Project is the Smile Train partner in Manipur and One of the highest performing centre of NE India.

The project congratulates Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on her new assignment.

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