Solidarity calendar Published on 2025 / 10 / 03

World Smile Day 2025

This October 3, we celebrate World Smile Day, a symbolic moment to recall the power of a simple smile and its universal impact. For La Chaîne de l'Espoir, it's an opportunity to highlight the smiles of children treated through our actions around the world. Because behind every medical treatment lies a new smile, bringing hope and a brighter future...

A young girl at the Children's Pavilion in Kabul

What is World Smile Day 2025?

Created in 1999 on the initiative of artist Harvey Ball, designer of the famous “smiley face”, this World Smile Day encourages everyone to spread joy around us, strengthen social ties and remember the beneficial effects of smiling and positivity on our mental and physical well-being. The smile is a universal language.
In the medical context, it is often a sign of healing or a new beginning.

According to the University of Kansas, smiling in a stressful situation reduces heart rate by 7% compared to a neutral face.

World Smile Day 2025: La Chaîne de l’Espoir’s actions

For over 30 years, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has been caring for and operating on thousands of children around the world. Behind every surgical mission, every training of medical staff, every early diagnosis, lie the stories of children regaining their health… and smiles.

In 2024, more than 227,000 people benefited directly from our actions in 25 countries. That same year, over 9,000 patients suffering from serious pathologies (cardiac, orthopedic, serious burns or malformations) were able to receive appropriate and often life-saving care.

World Smile Day 2025: treating children’s smiles

For this World Smile Day, La Chaîne de l’Espoir pays tribute to those children who, after an operation or treatment, let a smile blossom that illness had wiped out.

In our missions around the world, we see faces transformed every day:

children with orthopedic deformities walking pain-free for the first time;
cardiac children who, after surgery, regain their strength to play, laugh and go back to school;
young burn victims learning to smile again after a transplant or reconstruction

Like 5-year-old Maï, operated on for a heart defect in Vietnam, or Edem, now 13 months old, who risked permanent disability. The latter was operated on in time during an orthopedic care and training mission in the pediatric surgery department in Togo, which helped cure his obstetric brachial plexus paralysis.

These smiles are shared victories, concrete proof of the impact of our action. They give hope to families, inspire our teams and remind everyone that every gesture counts.

Today, some children are still waiting for their operation.
Seydou
7, is one of them. Originally from Cameroon, he suffers from caustic stenosis, which prevents him from eating and living like other children his age. A major but vital operation will enable him to return to a normal life… and to smile again.

By participating in World Smile Day and supporting La Chaîne de l’Espoir, you can give that smile to Seydou and hundreds of other children waiting for life-saving surgery.

For Smile Day: Raphaël’s story

“Thanks again to La Chaîne de l’Espoir. We cried with joy when we were selected for the fourth open-heart surgery mission to Madagascar. Our little Raphaël desperately needed this surgery. A whole new future opened up for him and for us, his parents. All thanks to you. Thank you for your professionalism, your kindness, your commitment… Not forgetting the whole CENOHSOA Madagascar team… You save lives, you give hope. This smile is dedicated to the entire La Chaîne de l’Espoir team.” Raphaël’s father

Find out more about World Smile Day.