Ohio State University-College of Dentistry first year dental students Rebecca Goldberg and Charu Gupta will be traveling to Kampala, Uganda on June 14, 2007 in collaboration with GYPA. They will be volunteering at the Makerere University Dental Clinic for a month. They aim to educate patients at the dental clinic about proper oral health technique and the importance of oral healthcare. Additionally, they will correlate the community’s oral heath status with their educational and economical backgrounds to better serve the needs of this community.



By working with their mentors Dr. Hillary Soller and Dr. Homa Amini at OSU, the students have been successful in raising money and dental supplies towards their efforts. The college has granted them $2500.00 each and items such as 750 toothbrushes, 750 toothpastes, 300 floss, and 100 fluoride varnishes to donate to the community members they aim to serve.

The students also plan to volunteer in the Namuwango community, outside of Kampala, as preventative dental educators in order to help improve oral hygiene technique and to establish oral health education in this region. They will use child-friendly dental educational tools such as puppets to teach the youth about proper oral care as well as provide fluoride varnish treatments. They will be distributing toothpastes, toothbrushes and floss to the community members to enable them to continue practicing proper oral care after their departure.