El Alsson students have been working closely with and supporting Operation Smile which is an organisation that operates on the cleft lip and cleft palate in 45 countries worldwide. El Alsson students raise funds, provide their support, entertain the children before and after their operations and enjoy one of the greatest experiences of all....changing lives of precious children, one smile at a time!
Due to our students' dedication, enthusiasm and passion, in Summer 2010, El Alsson were the first and only Student Club for the organisation in Egypt. For more information on the Student Club and their recent activities, please click here for their blog.

Then in August 2011, in Operation Smile’s 20th annual student conference in Beijing, El Alsson School Wons the "Outstanding Operation Smile International Club of the Year".

In early 2011, El Alsson Operation Smile Student Club voted and decided to donate the funds raised from the year before to a very special World Care Patient, Rokaya. Arzoo Rikhy, one of the founders of the Student Club, first saw Rokaya when she was 3 months old at the Operation Smile Cairo Mission last year. Rokaya was born with a rare deformity other than the cleft lip and palate: she was born with 2 mouths. She is now 9 months old and is accepted as a World Care Patient: a patient with a rare more complicated case who needs to travel to another destination (UK or USA) to operate. Within a couple of weeks, Rokaya will be all prepared and ready to travel with Tamer, her Dad to Los Angeles, where she will be living for about 2 months and will get her surgery and come back looking so beautiful! Rokaya came and visited us in school on Monday the 28th of February with her mother, father and older brother to meet the Student Club members and to answer all their questions and concerns.

Sept. 2011 Student Club Update

Our first task of the year as club leaders was to create an informative presentation which would persuade the new year 12 students at school to join the club and help us with achieving our goals! Zeyad Attalla, Yasmeen Fahim and I decided to make a powerpoint presentation with pictures, and wrote what each of us would say, and, Hassan Hamdy offered to help so it was the four of us presenting. The main topics we talked about were: what Operation Smile is; cleft lips and palates; our student club and what we've done so far; the mission we went on in December 2010; Rokaya; and our goals and expectations of the new club members. We ended off the presentation with a video that Operation Smile Egypt posted on YouTube which I saw touched all the students who were watching. After the presentation, FIFTY students signed up! I was extremely happy and excited to have so many new people in the club! Not only will we have more dedicated students working on fundraising for Operation Smile to create smiles, we will also have so many new ideas on how to achieve that too! In our first meeting held on Tuesday 13th September, Zeyad and I told the new club members what we expect of them, and planned our first fundraiser: a Thursday bake sale! We divided all club members into four groups: people baking, people setting up before break time, people clearing up after the bake sale making sure we leave no mess behind, and people selling! Our first bake sale was a HUGE SUCCESS! We raised double the money we thought we would, and more than enough to pay for a new smile! I'm so proud of everyone who was involved, and was so happy to see how the Year 12 students who had just joined the club were so enthusiastic and willing to help in any way!
By: Alia Ramez

Ever since Day 1 this year, the Operation Smile Student Club has been active, excited and enthusiastic. Their keenness to create new smiles showed, and they started off with Bake Sales to raise money for Rokaya, the little girl who was born with a rare deformity, she was born with 2 mouths. Last year she was accepted as a World Care Patient who needs to travel to another destination (UK or USA) for surgery, and our Operation Smile Student Club decided to donate the funds raised to Rokaya and to help her travel to the USA to get her smile back. During the Summer vacation, Rokaya had some issues with the visa, but it all ended well, and in ONE WEEK only, our students managed to raise enough funds to get Rokaya and her Dad to Los Angeles on September 24th and ROKAYA GOT THOUGH HER FIRST OPERATION SUCCESSFULLY!!