RealSelf Launches Beyond Scars: Healing Bodies. Restoring Lives. - A Global Effort To Address India's Burn Epidemic

SEATTLE, Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- RealSelf, the world's leading online marketplace to learn about cosmetic treatments and connect with doctors and other clinicians, today launched Beyond Scars: Healing Bodies. Restoring Lives, a new global initiative that provides burn survivors access to reconstructive surgery and medical care in India. Burns are a leading cause of premature death and disability in India,¹ and women and girls suffer burn disabilities and deaths at nearly twice the rate as other women and girls around the globe.²

Currently, India possesses only seven surgical specialists per 100,000 people³ and approximately three reconstructive plastic surgeons per 2 million people.⁴ The RealSelf Beyond Scars program partners with ReSurge International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building reconstructive surgical capacity in developing countries. This new program supports medical professionals in India who provide reconstructive surgical care to burn survivors in the region. RealSelf Beyond Scars also sends trained medical teams and volunteers to areas of the country where burn survivors have little access to this critical care.

"RealSelf is proud to launch Beyond Scars and help people access important reconstructive care in these underserved communities," said RealSelf Founder and CEO Tom Seery. "We are committed to helping people through the power of our community and our products, and RealSelf Beyond Scars is a natural extension of this commitment to help people build confidence to realize their full potential no matter where they live in the world."

"We are thrilled that the RealSelf Beyond Scars program takes a multifaceted approach to addressing the needs of burn survivors in India, both by expanding access to critical surgical care and by giving survivors an opportunity to break free from the stigma of disfiguring scars." said Jeff Whisenant, President and CEO of ReSurge International. "The RealSelf partnership with ReSurge demonstrates the company's commitment to its mission. We appreciate their support."

RealSelf support for ReSurge International in India began in 2015. The first volunteer trip was piloted in March 2018 to serve the Helping Hands Center, a medical clinic serving the remote town of Dehradun. The success of that trip led to the creation of RealSelf Beyond Scars. The program's second volunteer-led trip to India in December is sponsored, in part, by a generous donation from Delta Air Lines.  The December trip will aid Camp Karma, the subcontinent's first and only burn camp, in a country where there are more than 1.5 million pediatric burn survivors. Founded in 2013 by Dr. Vinita Puri, head of Plastic Surgery at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, Camp Karma focuses on transforming the lives of burn survivors by strengthening children's ability to mentally, socially, and emotionally recover from their burn injuries and gain the tools they need to move past their scars.

Thrive Causemetics, a luxury cosmetics brand, has also stepped up as a partner for this inaugural program to Camp Karma. Their donation fills a request from the young women of the camp who want make-up lessons to help them further connect with their new-found confidence. Thrive Causemetic's mission of "beauty with a purpose" and generous giving supports women around the world experiencing a range of challenging issues, from domestic violence to living through cancer treatment.

RealSelf
RealSelf is the leading aesthetics marketplace for people to learn and share experiences about cosmetic procedures and connect with the right providers. Millions of people from around the world visit RealSelf each month to browse patient reviews, before and after photos, and medical expert answers to discover which treatments and providers live up to their promise of being "Worth It." From simple skincare to emerging nonsurgical technologies to highly considered cosmetic surgeries, RealSelf makes it easy to get the insights needed to make smart, confident decisions, and find the right provider. For more information, visit The Treatment blog or follow RealSelf on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

ReSurge International
ReSurge International provides life-changing surgical care that is safe, timely, and affordable in developing countries, and develops surgical capacity to ensure the availability of year-round care. Founded in 1969 with Stanford University roots, ReSurge advances its mission in two ways: through surgical care and the ReSurge Global Training Program (RGTP). ReSurge trains the next generation of reconstructive surgeons in Africa, Latin America, and Asia; works with them to create a sustainable care model; and together, they provide high-quality reconstructive surgical care to people living in poverty and in remote areas.

Camp Karma
Camp Karma was founded in 2013 and is headquartered just outside the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. India possesses a unique social background with a blend of cultures and religions mixed with diverse socioeconomic levels. As with many societies in the world, India has struggled with a combination of  mythology, media, and cultural idioms that associate physical scars with bad or evil. Programs designed to break these cultural norms are mainly geared toward adolescents and adults; however, such programs do not exist for children—especially children who have sustained burns. Camp Karma brings together young burn survivors for a three-day camp, where they can leave behind cultural, religious, and socio-economic differences. In addition to the local counselors and volunteers, many international staff members attend camp each year, making it a truly unique experience.

Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines serves more than 180 million customers each year. In 2018, Delta was named to Fortune's top 50 Most Admired Companies in addition to being named the most admired airline for the seventh time in eight years. Additionally, Delta has ranked No.1 in the Business Travel News Annual Airline survey for an unprecedented seven consecutive years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 304 destinations in 52 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs more than 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 800 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry's leading transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia as well as a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with key hubs and markets including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-JFK and LaGuardia, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City, São Paulo, Seattle, Seoul, and Tokyo-Narita. Delta has invested billions of dollars in airport facilities, global products and services, and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Additional information is available on the Delta News Hub, as well as delta.com, Twitter @DeltaNewsHub and Facebook.com/delta.

Thrive Causemetics
Thrive Causemetics was born out of a friendship. Makeup artist and product developer, Karissa Bodnar, lost her dear friend Kristy to cancer at just 24 years old. Kristy's compassionate and vivacious spirit inspired Karissa to establish Thrive Causemetics, a beauty brand and philosophy that goes beyond skin deep by empowering women. Thrive Causemetics is Beauty with a Purpose: for every product you purchase, one is donated to help a woman thrive. We believe changing the world starts with a single ingredient, and that's why we create vegan, 100% cruelty-free formulas containing proven ingredients without the use of parabens or sulfates. All of our high-performance cosmetics are developed at Thrive Lab in Los Angeles—we control every step of the product development process, and a large part of it involves you. From selecting shades for our Glossy Lip Mark to testing our new formulations, your voice is heard in every step of our product creation process. With over a decade of experience as a makeup artist, beauty product designer, and formulator, Karissa has traveled the world sourcing powerful ingredients to create clean formulas with skin-loving properties.

¹ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs365/en/
² Calculations from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016, IHME-GBD http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool Women in India suffer burn disabilities and deaths at nearly twice the rate (206 per 100,000, DALYs; 3.4 per 100,000 deaths) as females around the globe (108 per 100,000 DALYs, 1.7 per 100,000 deaths).
³ World Bank Data Source https://data.worldbank.org/indicator (accessed on 20180225)
⁴ Kamali, Parisa, Maaike W. van Paridon, Ahmed M. S. Ibrahim, Marek A. Paul, Henri A. Winters, Veronique Martinot-Duquennoy, Ernst Magnus Noah, Norbert Pallua, and Samuel J. Lin. 2016.

SOURCE RealSelf

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