Physical Health Bolivia Project #17807

Provide Dental Care for 67,000 Bolivian Children!

by Smiles Forever

Project Report | Dec 9, 2022
Year-End Milestones & Holiday Joy at Dental Clinic

By Alejandro Beckrich Butron | Bolivian Smiles Forever Clinic Director

Dr. Frias with patient and Santas

FAITH, HOPE, DENTAL CARE & MERRY CHRISTMAS

Dear Friends, Supporters, Donors and everyone who identifies with our labor of love for the unprotected, needy and at great risk children.

New Shelters Centro Nuevo, Centro Boliviano Esperanza, and Kausay Muku (A New Life in Quechua)

This year was full of challenges and difficulties in our daily work, but we face them with every intention of overcoming any obstacle that comes our way. New shelters have already become part of the family of Smiles Forever beneficiaries increasing our total work load in 27% compared to 2021. Centro Contigo Nuevo is a shelter focused on supporting children at risk and abandonment by providing educational support, nutrition and counseling to families that are at the edge of rupture. Centro Boliviano Esperanza is an organization that works with children whose parents are incarcerated and has as objective their allocation with foster families. Kausay Muku (native Quechua words for A NEW LIFE) is an organization that works in the more impoverished neighborhoods and slums of Cochabamba providing education support, prevention and awareness related to abandonment and abuse.

During the month of November 2022, Smiles Forever Foundation had an active participation role in scientific programs related to the use of Silver Diamine Fluoride (SDF) with the involvement of local and international academics, dental care Providers (Dentists & Dental Hygienist’s) and other allied and partner organizations. This study is projected to demonstrate a more scientific approach to a new way of performing dentistry and its corresponding international publication of results.

Exciting New Year ahead helping the Rural Community of Marquina

For the Smiles Forever Foundation, 2023 represents new challenges and new projects that have been conceived and projected for this year, including the Silver diamine Fluride (SDF) application program in the rural community of Marquina in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with a projection of more than 700 beneficiaries in an initial stage, as well as the inclusion of new shelters, centers and homes in our community dental clinic program, projecting a 30% increase in the capacity of patients treated in our facilities. For these new programs and the continuity of our current projects and programs, we count on your support and donations that are crucial and it will allow us to provide dental care and prevention for so many children in need the opportunity to receive free quality dental treatments, allowing them to dream with a better future free of pain, infections and dental disease.

In this time of peace, love and harmony, this is my person and all the members of the Smiles Forever Foundation team who want to thank you and wish you happy holidays, a prosperous year 2023 and may your hearts be full of happiness and blessings.

Sincerely, Alejandro, Sandy and our wonderful team

Beba providing SDF education to prevent cavities

Beba explains dental treatment for longterm study

Beba's attentive student has wide-brimmed hat

Our sunny reception room at Cochabamba clinic

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Aug 17, 2022
New Program will Give Dental Care too 650 Children

By Alejandro Beckrich Butron | Smiles Forever Clinic Director

Mother and her baby at Medical Post by school

Smiles Forever will bring dental care to 650 highlands children through an exciting partnership between two valued GlobalGiving organizations: Smiles Forever and Refuge Rafael. An inter-institutional agreement was signed which will not only promote dental health with education and screenings and dentistry care, but will also launch a long-term research study using SDF. SDF is a silver diamide fluoride treatment which can arrest decay.

The scope of our work:

It is very pleasing for the Smiles Forever Foundation to announce our work and collaboration in favor of the San Rafael Refuge (located in the outskirts of Cochabamba – Bolivia), which is also a beneficiary of the GlobalGiving platform, a means by which we were able to initiate contact with this organization and later sign an inter-institutional agreement that allows us to work in pursuit of the oral health of the beneficiaries of a program as positive as the San Rafael Refuge.

The signing of this agreement also led to better and larger projects, since together with the San Rafael Refuge, work is being done on the development of a pilot program for the application of Fluor Diamino de Plata (SDF) that will benefit 320 children. Our initial collaboration began by assessing the acute needs at our Cochabamba clinic. Several children were screened and helped here in Cochabamba which is under a two hour commute from the refuge.

Recently, our founder Sandy Kemper visited from the United States and she was greeted with a special dance performance. The final objective is to be able to provide dental services to the more than 650 children of the Marquina elementary school, an elementary school in the area where the San Rafael refuge is located, as well as the establishment and refurbishment of a pre-existing dental unit that is currently abandoned due to lack of resources, supplies and professionals in the field who can provide the service that is non-existent in the area at the moment. Added to this is the very poor dental situation of the children who attend this school, a situation that was determined through an on-site evaluation visit for sampling.

We also want to thank all the members that make up the community of donors as well as all those who make up GlobalGiving since their work and support allows us to be able to help other programs that make up this wonderful community and the donors whose donations have a direct impact on the life and development of the beneficiaries of both organizations.

Children at Marquina elementary school

Children and Mother at Markina school

Aleida Poma, Dr. Duffin, Connie Delong, Alejandro

Sandy Kemper at school with Aleida, Alejo, Beba

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Apr 21, 2022
Dental Rescue for Refugio Raphael Helping Children

By Nancy Clark | Smiles Forever Project Leader

Rural Refugio Rafael family

Smiles Forever is answering Refugio Rafael's urgent plea for dental services, and your generous donations can help!

Traditionally, miners and migrant indigenous peoples of Bolivia's highlands, have been either forgotten or overlooked when it comes to receiving dental care. Often uprooted families are lacking shelter, a school, and even food. Sometimes the mother is left alone with her children. A wonderful organization, Refugio Rafael, also vetted by GlobalGiving, is closing the gap for these hill people. They can live in a safe community, grow some of their own food, and the children can attend school.

These social services are returning as the grip the Covid pandemic has had on Bolivia lessens. Smiles Forever is located in Cochabamba, a city in a fertile valley within a couple of hours of Refugio Rafael.

This is a special report from Smiles Forever to you and other supporters on behalf of their Provide Dental Care for 44,000 Bolivian Children! project on GlobalGiving.

The Smiles Forever dental clinic in Cochabamba, Bolivia is answering the plea to bring preventative and urgent dental care to children served by Refugio Rafael. Andean Highlands families, some with only a mother, have come to the shelter located approximately an hour and a half from our clinic. Currently, our two GlobalGiving groups are beginning a dental evaluation for elementary and older youth.

Already children are being identified for SDF treatments, which is a way to stop the spread of cavities. Other older children have been found to need specialist dental care for root canals or crowns.

This is an ideal new partnership because of the proximity, and it is really wonderful that both Smiles Forever and Refugio Rafael have strong leadership and stable finances to give this promise of longterm success.

Thank you for helping. Your gifts inspire us to expand dental care, in areas totally lacking in this critical aspect of overall health treatments.

Links:

https://goto.gg/38170

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