Charity Work

This week we have been raising money for a charity called 'Dentaid'. One of our dental nurses Louise works closely with this charity which helps to improve oral health in disadvantaged countries all around the world. She specifically works in conjunction with the Dentaid Uganda branch named "Ammanyo Ga Emirembe" This translates to 'Teeth for Life'.

Because of this, here at The Dental Studio we have also been doing our part to help too. We have a prize raffle draw for patients to enter in order to win a Colchester United shirt signed by all of the players!! There have also been a few home made cake sales which have been very successful! We have so far raised over £400 this week and hope to raise even more in the next few days!

Dentaid has supported around 260 programmes in 60 different countries making them one of the leading oral health charities in the world. The work that they carry out includes refurbishing dental surgeries as well as promoting oral health on a larger scale. They do this by creating training schemes on basic dental care for health workers, educational programmes within schools and also providing the government of these countries with national oral health strategies.

Louise has visited Uganda for the past two years to volunteer her skills as a Dental Nurse, this year spending four weeks out there between February and March. She spent her time travelling around the remote areas of Uganda along with nine other volunteers to offer a mobile Pain Relief Service to those who have little to no provision of basic medical and dental care. Time is also spent with the patients to teach them the basics of Oral Health. Dentaid believe that education is one of the most important parts of preventing Oral Disease across the world. Each volunteer is expected to raise a minimum of £2000 per trip, they also collect the necessary dental instruments and materials for providing treatment and transport it over with them to Uganda.

To help raise this £2000 for her next trip scheduled in February 2014, Louise is now bravely participating in a sponsored sky dive on Sunday the 8th of September to raise even more money!!!

The Dental Studio is dedicated to charity, and we've raised over £2000 for cancer research since we opened five years ago. We now want to focus on something dental related that would have a big impact, so we've become unity partners with Bridge2Aid.

The practice wanted to get involved in the work because we are appalled that in the 21st Century, as much as 70% of the world's population have no access to safe dental care.

People die from horrifying DIY extractions and others aren't able to work and support their families because they have been in severe pain for up to five years.

Bridge2Aid is working to address this terrifying problem by providing access to dental pain relief for the millions of people suffering in the developing world.

We felt that we didn't just want to put a few pennies in a pot, but actually work in partnership with Bridge2Aid to make a difference.

The Unity Partnership represents a select group of dental practices and businesses recognised by Bridge2Aid for their support of dental training.

Bridge2Aid is a charity in the Mwanza region of North West Tanzania working closely with the Tanzanian government tooperate a not-for-profit dental clinic in the city of Mwanza and run a community development programme for the poorer communities of the region.

They also deliver the training of local Tanzanian health workers in emergency dentistry through their Dental Volunteer Programme.

During this nine day programme, volunteer UK dentists work on a one-to-one basis with a local Clinical Officer delivering training in emergency dentistry.

The Partnership is a perfect way for UK dental practices and businesses to be involved in this work; the Partners sponsor the training of one Tanzanian health worker in emergency dentistry.

The Clinical Officer goes on to work in their local community treating thousands of people who would otherwise have no access to dental care, providing vital relief from pain.

The Partners receive recognition of their support, updates on the progress of the training, and direct messages from 'their' clinical officer

We have committed to fundraise the costs of training a Tanzanian health worker in emergency dentistry.

These workers are the frontline personnel for most Tanzanians – they provide vaccinations, stitch wounds, delivery babies and just about anything else.

By supporting the teaching of dental skills, we are helping thousands of people to find a way out of pain relief from debilitating, and sometimes life threatening, dental problems. We are looking forward to hearing how our Clinical Officer is getting on with his training

If you have any questions for us about our charitable efforts, we can be found on our social media outlets: