For years I’ve wanted to volunteer overseas for Dentaid, a charity that sends UK dental professionals to countries where there is a real shortage of dental care. This summer I have the opportunity.

Using my skills I’ll provide free oral health care, much needed vital treatment & information to disadvantaged children in one of the poorest Philippines cities. This will be invaluable not only in ensuring that local children get dental treatment, but also that they & their teachers are provided with the information & knowledge needed to maintain a healthy mouth.

There are several teams involved and project activities are based around Umapad Elementary School Mandaue, Cebu. A public funded school of 1100 children of which the majority are extremely poor. Education is offered to a group termed “scavenger children” as they’re from the local dump sites & live by recycling other people’s waste into money.

The school services a slum area devastated by numerous incidents (earthquakes, large fires, damage from typhoons). Buildings are mainly scrap materials, easily victim of bad weather conditions. The school struggles to provide good education opportunities due to lack of resources.

The Dentaid mission is to get all the children “dentally fit” by providing pain relief & dental treatments, including fluoride varnish; oral health education to children & teachers, in addition to setting up a school tooth brushing programme, to support oral health improvement after volunteers leave.

A local dentist will work alongside dental students from Cebu Dental School to provide a Dental Treatment Centre.

Dentaid volunteers will be part of a wider group of relief teams who will be working together across a range of activities, including teaching English, IT, community support training & rebuilding.

The cost of the trip is high, but donations go to supporting Dentaid and funding my placement.

Please help support this vital outreach mission as it means so much to me.