Make It Matter

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

W 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 chil-
COURTESY GEOFF WILLIAMS, MD

dren during their

three-day stay.
The rest had to
be turned away.
“It was devastat-
ing,” Williams Dr. Geoff Williams,
says quietly. with My Anh, a
When his plane Vietnamese patient.
readersdigest.com 3/09 11
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 full-
time correcting facial deformities
in 12 countries, including Mexico,
Tanzania, Pakistan, India, the Philip-
pines, and Taiwan. He has performed
almost 1,000 operations, most of
them since he started his Interna-
tional Children’s Surgical Foundation
(icsfoundation.org)—and he has
no plans to stop.
His work is literally life-changing.
Peruvian-born Danit Olivera, for
instance, was diagnosed as an infant
with facial fibrolipomatosis, a rare
deformity. Danit underwent painful
treatment that was ultimately inef-
fective. 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 promise to smile at ran-

Grin City
Unlike starving artists
everywhere, Bren Bata-
clan, 40, is giving it away.
He paints cartoon charac-
ters (neither human nor
animal), with one big eye
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 grati-
tude 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
dom 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 pho-
tos. The characters make
them smile, his fans tell
him, and they give them
hope. “It’s nice to know
that my art really is mak-
ing a difference,” he says.
Since the economic
COURTESY JOSH CAMPBELL

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 Bata-
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
downturn, Bataclan, who
supports himself as a
full-time artist, has been
attaching a different note
to his canvases: “Every-
thing will be alright.”
Kathryn M. Tyransk i

12 readersdigest.com 3/09
 tucks, face-lifts, and breast enlarge-
ments 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
wardrobe every year,” he explains.
Williams is multiplying his impact
by teaching other doctors the nu-
ances 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 Sigler even started earn-

Journey of
Healing
For years after she was
raped as a senior in high
school, Michele Sigler lived
with depression, substance
abuse, flashbacks, and
COURTESY MICHELE SIGLER
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
ing a nominal salary last
year by visiting schools,
college campuses, and
senior citizen complexes to
talk about healthy relation-
ships and elder abuse.
Last fall, when a 16-year-
old 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

nightmares. After her hus-
band, Brad, encouraged her
to get help five years later,
she called the Contact Rape
Crisis Center (contact
huntington.com) in Hunt-
ington, West Virginia, her
with them during the sex-
ual assault exam, the law
enforcement questioning,
and the polygraph. I go
with them to court. I’m
the voice of the victim,”
she says.
helped her,” says Sigler.
“For me, that’s what it’s
all about.” K. M. T.
What cause matters
most to you? Vote for
your favorite at readers
digest.com/whatmattersmost.

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