The Smile Foundation
Smile Foundation is a South African non-profit organisation that brings professional people together to provide expert surgical intervention. This organisation creates social involvement and enables sensible corporate social investment, which can make a difference in the lives of these children. Our support of Smile Foundation is instrumental in ensuring that together, we can offer needy children all the necessary treatments to make their dream smile a reality.
This is an example of the result of the type of work that the Smile Foundation does:
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The kind of assistance that Smile Foundation is looking for from dental professionals:
- Basic Dental: regular preventative and restorative care
- Orthodontics at a later stage once they're older
- Prosthodontic care: artificial teeth, dental appliances, dental bridges, 'speech bulbs', palatal lifts
- Assistance with hypodontia/extra teeth/dystrophic teeth
On average, the Smile Foundation assists 180 - 200 children nationwide. Most (75%) of these are cleft lip or palate patients requiring dental assistance during their surgery.
In 2012, one of our founder members, Dr Ivonne Meyer, initiated 'Uhuru Smile', a fundraising drive to raise awareness and funds for the Smile Foundation. The five-member team summited Kilimanjaro's Uhuru Peak on the morning of 7 September 2012, raising R150 000 to operate on children born with cleft lip and palate deformities.
The Dental Wellness Trust
Dr Andy Effting and Dr Linda Greenwall in Gugulethu
SAAAD is proud to be associated with The Dental Wellness Trust, a London-based registered charity that promotes dental wellness to less fortunate communities in the UK and internationally. The Trust plans to do this in the future through innovative oral health education programmes and treatment for those in need. Promoting oral health, which is integral to general health and quality of life, is at the forefront of The Trust's work.
We believe every person has a right to access oral health care and a life of dignity, free from pain. This is why, in the future, the Dental Wellness Trust plans to focus on long-term and sustainable preventative oral health strategies to help those in need.
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