The greater good

Situated in the middle of India. Is the AOG-supported dental project in Chitrakoot. AOG helps to finance services and sends out volunteers to some 500 remote villages, sorting out pain, infections, repairing cleft palates, burns and a myriad of other oro-facial problems. Since the AOG has been funding most of these dental surgeries and supporting outreach treatments, more than 31,000 patients have been seen in-house, and a very large number treated in mobile open air treatment centres in the rural villages. Correcting clefts, diagnosing cancer, and repairing burns completely changes people’s lives, livelihoods and marriage prospects. Dentistry and dentists can make a huge difference.

The AOG will fly out in February next year to finance a further set of projects to support the dental services. A laboratory and a surgery for a resident clinical dental technician is envisaged.

Pomi Datta, the president of the AOG said, ‘I am delighted to have helped design the surgeries. They are practical and professional. I pay particular tribute to Naresh Sharma who has headed the project and the numerous other luminaries, including Crawford Grey, David Hutchinson, Oliver Fenton, Ashok Sethi, Bill Sharpling, Subhir Banerjee and so on, who have all been seminal in making this project come to life.’