Rays Of Hope

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Make It Matter Rays of Hope A surgeon repairs faces, an artist leaves smiles around town, and a victim gives others a voice

COURTESY GEOFF WILLIAMS, MD

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hen plastic surgeon Geoff Williams saves a face, he also saves a life. Training with Taiwanese mentors on a medical mission in Vietnam, he was astounded by the crowd that greeted them in one village: 200 mothers waiting with their children, all with cleft lips or palates. The women mobbed him, pleading for help, as he entered the local hospital. “It was as if they were in a sinking ship,” Williams recalls, “and we were a lifeboat passing by.” The surgeons could operate on only 25 to 30 children during their three-day stay. The rest had to be turned away. “It was devastating,” Williams Dr. Geoff Williams, says quietly. with My Anh, a Vietnamese patient. When his plane readersdigest.com 3/09

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Grin City Unlike starving artists everywhere, Bren Bataclan, 40, is giving it away. He paints cartoon characters (neither human nor animal), with one big eye and one small one (he has no idea why), in brilliant colors, and he leaves his small canvases around Boston and other cities. And they’re free. It all started when Bata12

Peruvian-born Danit Olivera, for instance, was diagnosed as an infant with facial fibrolipomatosis, a rare deformity. Danit underwent painful treatment that was ultimately ineffective. Depressed by the stares and insults, she stopped attending school and holed up at home, convinced, she now says, that she’d never awake from “a nightmare that had lasted my entire life.” Williams told the 19-year-old he could help. Now 20, Danit is thrilled to face the world. “I am a different person,” she says. “I am happy.” Williams could be earning more than $1 million a year doing tummy

clan moved to Boston from the Midwest to teach computer graphics. After he lost his job, he started painting what are now his signature characters. He sold 49 in two days and wanted to show his gratitude somehow. But how? Bostonians’ reserved demeanor had bothered him for years. Now he realized the city’s residents were as friendly as Midwesterners—in their own way. It finally came to him: He would give away his artwork and ask just one thing in return. He attached this note and his website address (bataclan .com) to each canvas: “This painting is yours if you

promise to smile at random people more often.” It was the beginning of his Smile Project. Bataclan has left his giveaways in 20 states and 20 countries. People who have found his paintings send him notes and photos. The characters make them smile, his fans tell him, and they give them hope. “It’s nice to know that my art really is making a difference,” he says. Since the economic downturn, Bataclan, who supports himself as a full-time artist, has been attaching a different note to his canvases: “Everything will be alright.” Kathryn M. Tyransk i

readersdigest.com 3/09

COURTESY JOSH CAMPBELL

left Vietnam, he vowed to go back. Williams never planned to become a globe-trotting volunteer surgeon. “I thought I’d help these children for a couple of years and get it out of my system.” But that was five years ago. Williams, 53, now works fulltime correcting facial deformities in 12 countries, including Mexico, Tanzania, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, and Taiwan. He has performed almost 1,000 operations, most of them since he started his International Children’s Surgical Foundation (icsfoundation.org)—and he has no plans to stop. His work is literally life-changing.

tucks, face-lifts, and breast enlargements in the United States. A friend told him he was “throwing away my career, that I can’t change the world.” But he’s never been motivated by money. When he earned $200,000 a year as a professor at a teaching hospital in Galveston, Texas, Williams lived in an apartment that cost $250 a month. He squirreled away most of his paycheck and now lives off his savings. Because he travels most of the time and is single, he stays with his parents in Boise, Idaho, between missions (and insists on paying them $10 a day). “I’m just not a guy who needs a new

COURTESY MICHELE SIGLER

Journey of Healing For years after she was raped as a senior in high school, Michele Sigler lived with depression, substance abuse, flashbacks, and nightmares. After her husband, Brad, encouraged her to get help five years later, she called the Contact Rape Crisis Center (contact huntington.com) in Huntington, West Virginia, her

wardrobe every year,” he explains. Williams is multiplying his impact by teaching other doctors the nuances of his skill. “The Vietnamese mothers drilled something into me: that their children really suffer. Their suffering can be alleviated— but not just by me. My real legacy is that I help to empower doctors and they empower other doctors, so this work has mushroomed into something larger than what any one person can do alone.” Mandy Matson Tell us how you or someone you know is making it matter, and your story may appear here. Go to readersdigest.com/ makeitmatter.

hometown. It took six months of therapy before she could begin to put the past behind her. Sigler called Contact again three years ago, this time to volunteer. She had a degree in counseling and got still more training to qualify as a victim advocate. Sigler, 36, now works at least two 12-hour shifts a week. “I take the hotline calls, just like when I called. I go with the women to the emergency rooms, and I sit with them during the sexual assault exam, the law enforcement questioning, and the polygraph. I go with them to court. I’m the voice of the victim,” she says.

Sigler even started earning a nominal salary last year by visiting schools, college campuses, and senior citizen complexes to talk about healthy relationships and elder abuse. Last fall, when a 16-yearold girl was raped, Sigler met her at the emergency room, and she continues to talk with the girl about once a week. “She came to me recently to say she hopes one day to help someone the way I helped her,” says Sigler. “For me, that’s what it’s K. M. T. all about.” What cause matters most to you? Vote for your favorite at readers digest.com/whatmattersmost.

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