MissionSmiles
- Salma Awwad
- Nov 5, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 12, 2023
Salma Awwad here, I'd like to thank and welcome you all for joining us this new school year, with our exciting new mission, "MissionSmiles"!
In September, I got the opportunity to travel to San Francisco to attend the California Dental Association, Art & Science of Dentistry Convention, 2022.
From attending the CDA Convention, I gained insight on the significance of dental care. There, I participated in lectures teaching about different practice techniques, new conditions to watch out for with patients, and also the drive and motivation that dentists have to improve the quality of life for patients all over the world.
There are a few organization groups, where dentists volunteer to travel to underserved countries and treat patients with oral care. They perform all kinds of dental procedures from cleft lip/palate repair to oral cancer surgery, they do it all. This is something I found to be inspiring and I wanted to teach my students about some of the things I learned, with a new mission, of course.
In October, we started our new mission, MissionSmiles, with a new 6th grade class!
I gave a few presentations teaching the students the basics of oral care and why it's important, and then dove into more specific dental care issues that third world countries are facing now. We talked about how unhealthy mouths can effect the rest of your body tremendously. I showed a few videos sharing different scenarios where bad oral health has led to much more serious conditions, and that really helped the students understand the importance of keeping our mouths nice and healthy. Giving the students an understanding of the value of having healthy teeth, made it more effective when trying to teach them why it's important for all people in the world to have quality dental care.
After giving them the fundamentals of dental care, I then gave them a perception of how high the demand for dentists in many third world countries are. Did you know that there is only 1 dentist per 152,721 citizens in low-income countries? This is alarming! After, we began to learn about specific conditions like cleft lips/palates and oral cancer. These are the main conditions we focused on when studying the serious conditions children and adults suffer with in third world countries and have no way to get treated. The lack of dental care in developing countries is something we should all be aware of. Dental care seems to be forgotten about, and the people are paying for that.
We also briefly discussed the link between oral health and mental health. Students were engaged and sharing with the class about experiences throughout the session and I was very pleased to see them so involved and making these important connections.
To view some of the resources shown in class about this mission, view the powerpoint below:
To get started on the kids' projects, I had them work through a worksheet in groups to ensure they knew what they would be covering in their projects. Worksheet posted below:
The students were split into groups to work together to execute a master plan of: "how can we increase dental care access for people in third world countries?" They had super creative, clever, and effective solutions that I was impressed to learn about.
Catch y'all next time and don't forget to subscribe, and SMILE!
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