Free dental services for 5,000 Westmoreland, St Elizabeth residents

Several communities in the parishes of Westmoreland and neighbouring St Elizabeth are to benefit from free dental services throughout November, courtesy of the Sandals Foundation/Great Shape! Inc's 1,000 Smiles Project.

Clinics will run from November 9 - 13 and November 16 - 20. Westmoreland locations include the Whitehouse Community Centre, Seaford Town Catholic Church and the Llandilo Community Centre.

The St Elizabeth clinic will be based at the New Market Health Centre.

Clinics will be open to the public from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and patients will have access to cleaning, filling and extractions. Partial denture services will be offered at the New Market clinic. An education team will also go into local schools to educate students about oral care.

The team of 130 volunteers from North America and Jamaica, led by Great Shape Inc's Executive Director Joseph Wright, will be accommodated at Sandals Whitehouse. Sandals Foundation, in addition to covering accommodation, also provides meals and entertainment, logistical support, transportation, and an expanded network.

The Ministry of Health and the University of Technology are also partners of the programme and have provided technical expertise and other areas of support.

"In our world record setting partnership with the Sandals Foundation, we have served well over 150,000 Jamaicans since 2003 all across the Island. In these coming two weeks we'll be aiming to serve nearly 5,000 persons with our free dental clinics and oral health education programme. We are grateful to be welcomed back year after year and our volunteers absolutely love Jamaica: the beaches, the beautiful countryside, the food, the music and most of all the friendly, appreciative and beautiful Jamaican people," said Joseph Wright.

Great Shape! Inc also conducts two other projects in Jamaica, iCare and SuperKids Literacy in partnership with the Sandals Foundation. The 1,000 Smiles project, said Great Shape, is the world's largest, international, humanitarian dental project which has been impacting lives since 1988.

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Free-dental-services-for-5-000-Westmoreland--St-Elizabeth-residents-_19237130

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