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| VIETNAM 2009 - DENTAL RELIEF OPERATION - We do the same every year when we traveled to VN, in every village we reached, every child we treated, it is the same work, day after day, and year after year, yet every mission trip is filled with excitement and joy. Every year, we try to reach the distant villages that no team has ever been, we spent hours on the dirt road, crossing rivers by boat and ferry, we come to where the children live, in their rural towns, in their elementary schools, we come to say that "YES WE CARE". Our VN 2009 team consisted of volunteers from the US, Canada, and VN. We helped each other, working closely everyday to make seeing 300 kids or more a day possible, what a team. If you see us work, it's like seeing our hearts dance..... In the tropical heat of the long days we treated a sea of school children in our make shift clinics: an exam station, a waiting table where the kids play with puzzles and coloring books while waiting for their turn, 2 stations of fluoride treatment, 2 stations of surgery, 1 station of sterilization, 1 station as pharmacy, and one station as gift package pick-up. Behind the scene we are lucky to have a team of dedicated helpers who boil water to make milk for our patients, get hundreds and hundreds of gift packages ready, cook lunch for our team, bring us drinks and snack during the long day when we had no time to stop for break. Actually there is no break, we start working the minute we reach the school, and we only make a short stop for lunch and then go on until the last kid is treated and there is no more daylight. We travel over 10,000 miles to get to these villages, and we want to help the most kids as we could, that is all to it. (1 photos)
VIETNAM 2008 - DENTAL RELIEF OPERATION - An incredible trip with 7 volunteers from the US and 1 from the UK and 4 from Saigon. We traveled on bumpy dirt roads, took long boat rides to reach very remote villages to set up our dental clinics. The first week our team were in Tien Giang province, set up clinics in Cai Be, Go Cong Dong, Tan Phuong, Chau Thanh, seeing total of 1,736 elementary school children. The second week in Long An Province we treated 708 children in distant village of Thu Thua district and Tan Thanh District. Our team also provided dental health sessions to villagers as part of our community empowerment effort to prevent dental diseases, made gift bags for 1,209 mothers and pre-school children in Tien Giang Province, 752 in Long An Province. DDS4Kids is the only humanitarian organization that reached different remote villages of VN and provide continuous dental health dental education since 1996. (15 photos)
Vietnam 2007 - Dental Education Program - December 6 - Welcome Dr. Hue upon her return to VN and continues to join hand with DDS4Kids. As part of the five year dental program, 1,440 elementary school children received dental health education in 3 different school of Long Son Island, Vung Tau Ba Ria province. (8 photos)
Tennessee - Children Health & Maintenace Plan (CHAMP) - November 2, 2007 - Dr. Lan Jones provided free dental screening for Winfield School in Scott County, 216 students from K – 8th grade as part of the Appalachian Life Quality Initiative for Children’s Welfare program. ALQI partners with the community to promote health, education and other programs especially for the underserved children. This partnership will be a lifelong process enabling each child to be an educated, confidant, self-directed, and a positive member of an ever-changing global society. It’s extremely rewarding to help children, regardless of geography. Children are like children everywhere in the world. They need to be loved, cared for, and EDUCATED. (9 photos)
Vietnam 2007 - Beyond Dental Relief - November 4 - 9, 2007 - Thanks to the continuing support from caring people like you, DDS4Kids org. are able to provide financial assistance, transportation and hospital support to 15 severely burned patients and 11 cleft lips cleft palate patients from remote villages of Tien Giang, Daklak, Lam Dong, Dong Nai to Saigon for reconstruction surgery performed by a team of volunteer American plastic surgeons as part of the Burn & Facial Reconstruction Mission to VN. (20 photos)
Vietnam 2007 - Dental Education Program - October 29-30, 2007- DDS4kids five-year dental education program continues in 5 elementary schools serving 1,902 students from 5 to 10 years old in Tien Giang Province with the participation of the teachers, school administration and Red Cross health care workers. (7 photos)
Vietnam 2007-Beyond Dental Relief - October 15 - 17, 2007 - Helping another group of children from Vinh Long, Can Tho, Quy Nhon, An Giang, Bac Lieu, Binh Thuan, Long An, Dong Thap, and Daklak to receive the needed surgical treatment at the National Hospital of Odonto-Stomatology in Saigon. (13 photos)
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DDS4KIDS
Humanitarian Dental Relief Organization
DDS4Kids is a federal and state licensed non-profit health
organization with the exclusive purpose to provide charitable dental care
treatment and preventive dental health education on a long-term basis to
children and adults living in deep poverty in the developing countries in
the world. Dentists,
health professionals, and non-health volunteers are needed on each team. While
sharing our skills and resources with the underserved
rural populations, team members will have an opportunity to experience the
unique beauty of the country and its people that most tourists do not come
to know.
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March 2009 - "Mission Accomplished!" Can't thank everyone enough for another beautiful trip! Our team (from US, Canada and Vietnam) had breakfast at 6am, get our supplies ready, our caravan headed to the remote villages by 7am, and we did not return to our hotel until 7 or 8 pm most of the time. We saw over 2,000 children in 6 distant villages - sometimes we had to cross the river by ferry and follow long bumpy dirt roads, we worked in the tropical heat, our make shift clinics were the classrooms of the village elementary schools, we worked long and hard in primitive condition to say the least. We didn't choose to go to VN because it was easy, we went where the children needed us. While many people chose to stay home due to the unstable economy, we chose to say "YES WE CARE!" A repeat volunteer our future Dr. Crystal Vo had to work 3 jobs while attending University of Washington to save enough money to go on this trip. She was the youngest in the team but there was no question about her maturity, focus, and dedication in helping others. Dr. Mai Le, a pedodontist from Seattle, WA had to plan a year ahead to be able to have the time off to be on this trip. It is not easy for any of us to arrange our family life, work life, married life, daily responsibilities at home, overcome many obstacles so we can be away from our families and make the time for the children living in deep poverty. Dr. Julie Kim from Montreal, Canada, bravely asked all of her relatives to support her effort and they did! Fifty dollars here and a hundred dollars there, it adds up. We must be the voice for the children who have no voice and no choice. Dr. Julie Kim and Dr. Mai Le are both used to help the indigents and low-income communities in their daily practice (including a lot of oral surgery) they shine under challenging working conditions in VN! Mrs. Brenda Rust, another repeat volunteer on our team, is a nurse in Tennessee and California. She was also a school bus driver, so you know, this is a lady who is not afraid of hard work! When our team visited a very old, overly crowded, and real gloomy looking hospital in Saigon, Brenda commented how she has more respect for the Vietnamese doctors who can treat and help so many patients under this basic condition while most doctors in the rich world would think that they can't function unless they have "everything". Happiness is not having everything, true happiness is making the most with everything you have. The way we see things in the world is the way our soul expresses itself, it shows who we really are deep down inside. It was an honor for me to have a team of this caliber!
We came home as a richer person as our hearts are filled with the unforgettable faces and smiles, the thousands of innocent children that have touched us deeply ...
More photos follow soon. Thank you everyone! Lan Jones, DDS
OUR PURPOSE:
OUR TEAMS TRAVEL TO REMOTE VILLAGES WITH THE SOLE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING FREE DENTAL SERVICES TO RURAL COMMUNITIES. OUR TEAM MEMBERS ARE THOSE WHO ARE CARING, COMPASSIONATE, HARD WORKING, FLEXIBLE, EASY GOING, ENJOY HELPING OTHERS, AND BRING THE FUN WITH THEM EVERYWHERE THEY GO.
WE ARE NOT A TRAVEL AGENCY AND OUR TRIPS ARE NOT VACATIONS FOR THE REGULAR ADVENTURE SEEKERS. DDS4KIDS IS A NON-PROFIT HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATION WITH NO PAID STAFF, ONLY LIFE-LONG VOLUNTEERS. You don't have to be a dental professional to join, students and all volunteers are needed. TRIPS OPPORTUNITIES
* AFRICA - Malawi - November 8 - 18, 2009 - Team is full, stand-by application only.
*Vietnam - Feb 27 - March 13, 2010 - Accepting applications at present. Team members already started to sign up in 2008.
* Vietnam - Feb 19 - March 5, 2011 - Accepting applications.
* India - Himalayas - June 1- 15, 2011 * Vietnam - Feb 18 - March 3, 2012 Send us your application. Thank you!
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