On the 24th of May, 2015, Project Child helped 35 children and 10 parents from Kricak to have some of their first dental check-ups. This program was developed with the initiative of one of Project Child’s Volunteers: Pangky Fajar Sagita. Pangky is a dentistry student at Universitas Gadjah Mada and helped connect Project Child to the faculty of Dentristy there. Project Child believes every person can contribute to helping their community using their specific skills. Pangky really embodied this with this dental health checkup program by organising and integrating his skills for the purpose of development and social work. With his help, Drg. Dita came down to visit Kricak and do a risk assesment and cavity history check. With this new information, Project Child will be developing a preventative dental healthcare program for our community at Sekolah Sungai.
The connection between dental hygiene and poverty is a serious concern for Project Child and the communities we work with. The results from the checkup were quite worrying, with 83% of children over 6 years old showing a high risk for new cavities. 57% of children under 5 years old also showed high risk for cavities along with 100% of the mothers who were examined.
Some children had nearly a full mouth of decayed teeth, and while decayed adult teeth are a more serious problem – this is still an important issue to address. While the children’s dental hygiene can be tackled with education on how to brush their teeth and another screening in 6 months, some of the adults will need restoration. The reccomendation from Drg. Dita for the future is to on the prevention of dental cavities and thick plaque.
Project Child ran a class with the children and some students from the UGM faculty of dentistry to teach them about dental healthcare, which was a huge success.
Thank you to Pangky and Drg. Dita for offering their time and expertise for free to help our community in Kricak, this zero rupiah project is exactly how Project Child likes to run!
