Ghana Dental Outreach 2011 – a huge success!

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Flying into Accra I couldn’t wait to get to the picturesque Lake Bosumtwi where this year’s Ghana Dental Outeach was located. It had been three months since I had met Mr Addei, Afrik and the other village leaders for the first time to discuss the possibility of organizing an outreach project based out of their village.

IMG 3032 150x150 Ghana Dental Outreach 2011 – a huge success!

The Ghana team

Arriving at the Bay View Lodge accommodation, set right on the lakeside, I met the 10 adventurous student dentists. They were all in high spirits and eager to start the treatment the following day having spent the first day visiting the partnership hospital in Kumasi and meeting the staff team and clinical supervisors. They had also had their first meeting with the primary school children they would be treating at the Adwafo RC Primary. All of the students were surpised by the warmth of the welcome they received from both teachers and students.

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Top 10….. Dentistry do’s and dont’s

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

As the Nepal Dental Outreach Project begins this weekend, we looked at the top ten bits of dental advice that we could give to villagers.

  1. Faye 2010 90 150x150 Top 10….. Dentistry do’s and dont’s

    Work the World run yearly Dental Outreach Projects

    Watch your diet – You’ve heard it before – a good diet will do wonders for you. What you might not have realised is the effect of food on your teeth.  High fibre foods not only stimulate saliva (which fights bacteria) it gives your teeth a good scrubbing as you chew. Tofu, leafy greens, beans, whole grains and poultry contain vitamins A, C and D and along with dairy products, plenty of  calcium.

  2. Drink water – rinsing your teeth is really important as it washes away all the foods and sugary drinks that are left in the mouth.
  3. Enjoy a cup of tea – Green and black tea contain polyphenols that interact with the bacteria that causes plaque. They either kill or supress bacteria which prevents them from growing or producing attacking acids.
  4. Snack on nuts – they have so many vitamins and minerals in they make perfect snacks for healthy mouths.
  5. Avoid fizzy drinks and juices - Some bottles of pop contain as much sugar as a king – sized chocolate bar. Even diet drinks, despite being sweetened, contain tooth-eroding acids. And fruit juices…. if you think about the fact lemon juice is as a cleaning or bleaching agent, you get a good idea of what could be going on with your teeth! If you can’t avoid them, use a straw.

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Ghana Dental Outreach Project 2010

Friday, August 13th, 2010
P1000874 150x150 Ghana Dental Outreach Project 2010

Some of the kids

This year’s Dental Outreach Programme in Ghana took place in Jacobu within the Ashanti region of Ghana. It was about an hour’s drive south of Kumasi, which is the second largest city in Ghana and famous for its markets. The project spanned 3 weeks and consisted of seven 4th year dental students as well as (and for the first time ever for us) 5 dental hygienists. All the participants were studying or had finished studying at Cork and were therefore full of Irish vigour and energy!

The project was designed to provide free screenings and treatments to the school children of the local area. We had a bus and each day it would take us to the schools where the screenings were carried out and then bring those children that had been referred to the local St Peters Hospital for treatment. The screening process was immense! Just short of 4,500 children were screened during the project. We were privileged to have the dental hygienists during the screening process, they worked to provide education (of course with translators!) to all of those children that were screened by the dental students. This will enable the good work that took place to carry on after we left so that the children understand the importance of effective oral cleaning.

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The first dental project in Nepal is finished!

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

The first of the four dental outreach projects by Work The World has just finished. I can breathe a sigh of relief and say, what a week!

Faye 2010 25 150x150 The first dental project in Nepal is finished!

Work the World banners went up through Bandipur

After months of planning it’s good to see your hard work pay off. There was a huge turnout, happy faces and smiles everywhere….two weeks of thorough dental checkup and treatments in Bandipur.

Back track a week, there were nerves of tension shooting across my mind…. How the project was going to be? What if this happens? What if that happens? Lots of questions until the final showdown! No matter how confident you are or may seem, this is something that happens to organisers of any event. It’s like putting the strings of a guitar together… with some fine tuning… you’re set to strum the beat and set the crowd on.

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Win a two week placement on the Dental Outreach team in Kerala!

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Work the World Dental Outreach Programme 2009 found that 76% of children in rural Kerala need dental treatment, so are offering one student the chance to take part in the 2010 programme for free!

Tolu Ajayi India Surprise 150x150 Win a two week placement on the Dental Outreach team in Kerala!

Treating patients India 2009

The project continues in July 2010 and to boost awareness, Work the World are offering one fourth or fifth year dentistry student or professional the opportunity to win a two week placement in India with the Dental Outreach team.

The 2010 India dental outreach programme will send students to rural villages across Kerala to treat local children in makeshift dental clinics. Working under the supervision of qualified local dentists, phase one will see the team running oral hygiene workshops to educate the children in caring for their teeth as well as setting up an intensive screening process. All children with dental problems are then referred to the local hospital in which the project is based, with phase two dedicated to providing free dental treatment for each child. With students performing as much of the work as possible, this is a fantastic way for dentistry students to gain on-the-job experience as well as making a real contribution to the local community and having the experience of a lifetime.

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Abby and Omar head to the World Dental Congress

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Last week Omar and I were invited to attend the 56th IADS and YDW Annual World Dental Congress in Romania – the land of Dracula and the Cheeky Girls!

p1000523 150x150 Abby and Omar head to the World Dental Congress

Abby mans the Work the World stand

We were greeted at the airport by Ioana and Ciprian our team leaders and were taken back to the hotel to meet everyone and rest up before the Official Opening Ceremony.  During the ceremony we were treated to a Thriller-esque intro to the IADS committee plus a virtual tour around the new dental clinic at the university.  It was immediately obvious that we were amongst a wonderful group of friends as the students here attend these events every year.

The next morning I was very kindly given the opportunity to present our new outreach projects to the committee.  They were enthusiastically received and many students can’t wait to get involved next summer. We also took part in an international exchange fair where we met the wonderful Prof. Dr. Holger Jetsch from the University of Leipzig, Germany who was also talking.  The General Assembly and also the NEO- meeting of IADS, in fact all of it was such a success.

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Rogue gap year companies – what to look out for.

Friday, August 14th, 2009

The Times published an article this week about the problems of voluntourism and the exploitation of students that sign up to enticing sounding volunteer projects overseas, only to end up disillusioned and disappointed when their placement turns out to be of no real benefit, or is sometimes even deemed detrimental to the community.

dsc00819 150x150 Rogue gap year companies – what to look out for.

Boys playing in India

Although Work the World send out gap year students on specific healthcare placements, and the Times article was focusing on companies that send volunteers to work on charitable projects, the message throughout the article about what students should be careful of when booking overseas trips to work in other communities, applies equally to us.

When Dave and Omar set up Work the World it was partly because they had met so many students in similar situations to those mentioned in the article. They wanted to start a company that actually did what it said on the tin and provided gap year students with an amazing experience, whilst at the same time creating a sustainable project in an overseas base that provided work for locals and was of benefit to the community.

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Dental Outreach India – Alison gives us the update

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
This was the first Dental Outreach Project I was involved in and it sure was a very rewarding experience!
dsc02449 150x150 Dental Outreach India Alison gives us the update

A student gets screened


The project was set up at the Angel’s School in Poovar, a small catholic coastal village about 20km from Trivandrum city in the state of Kerala. Poovar has a beautiful beach and a population of 30,000 people – a village by Indian standards! There are a handful of exclusive resorts in the area but the village remains relatively unaffected by tourism and is very peaceful.

The project consisted of seven dentistry students from Bristol and Newcastle Uni who were all taking their electives overseas. On our first day we received a wonderful reception led by the school manager, with speeches delivered by the Panchayat President (village leader), Dr Manu (our project supervisor) and Father Wilfred (from the local church). By the afternoon our temporary screening clinic was set up in one of the classrooms and in the first 3 days we managed to screen 400 schoolchildren. Of those,  360 were referred for treatment at NIMS Hospital. Quite an achievement!

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