Dental Care for All!

At Project Somos, we provide children with high-quality healthy food, we avoid added sugar as much as possible, and we teach them to systematically brush their teeth after every meal. Building such behavious is important for developing more healthy habits, which, in the long-run, will improve the kids health and hygiene.

Unfortunately, we still face great challenges with these kids. Most of them suffer from very bad dental health coming from several years of negligence. Many of the parents are not educated and/or unequiped to ensure decent dental hygiene for their off-spring. Many have no running water or electricity in the home. Moreover, living in extreme poverty doesn’t allow these families to consult dental care professionals. With this reality, it is almost impossible for the kids to have good teeth.

In the course of the past weeks, I have been working on a dental care project to adress this situation. More recently, several key partners confirmed their committement to this initiative. Thanks to them, we will be able to provide free dental care to over 40 kids. Dr. Luis Ramirez  generously accepted to treat the children in his clinic in Antigua. Two other dentists, Dr. Kenneth Pineda and Dr. Ana Lucrecia Arias Ramirez, joined the project and also accepted to treat the children, free of charge. Three nurses will be there to assist the dentists. And last but not least, the Swiss branch of the company Dentsply Sirona just confirmed their sponsorship to finance the whole project.

Coordinating such a project is difficult, it takes a lot of time and effort, and can sometimes be discouraging when things don’t go your way. But thinking about 40 kids’ smiles and the pain relief they’ll experience, after getting professional dental care, warms my heart and keeps me going. Such a feeling is the best incentive I could wish for!

Julien Dumont

Project Somos Global Development Manager