The provision of care for children who are born with a cleft (lip and) palate (CP±L) is often a challenge in African countries. Specifically for the East African country Uganda, the incidence of CP±L is estimated between 0.73 and 1.34 which means that each year approximately 1128–2070 babies are born with this condition. Unfortunately, adequate infrastructure and a lack of trained health care professionals hamper care for these patients.

In 2010, a VLIR-UOS collaboration (project ZEIN2009EL28) was established between the Ugandan CoRSU hospital and Ghent University. Additional funding was achieved through three Global Minds Funds (Ghent University). Within these projects, a surgical and a speech and language therapy department were installed at CoRSU Hospital. The exchange of knowledge and skills was paramount during this yearlong collaboration. The project expressed the need for workshops and specialized cleft training programs as these are often inaccessible for health care professionals in East Africa given the lack of supply, the long travel distances, and the excessive participation fees. Within our collaboration, we determined the effect of different surgical procedures on speech outcomes, we assessed the effects of different speech service delivery models, and we provided cleft care workshops for Ugandan health care professionals.