The primary goal of AIM for SEVA Canada (AIM) is to provide opportunities to underprivileged children in India by building student hostels (Free Student Homes) near government schools so that children from remote villages can obtain basic education. The children who pass through the AIM campus witness a dramatic transformation in their lives: they become well rounded, educated individuals, a fact that is consistently proved by their performance at school.
Gracious Donors
At behest of some gracious donors, AIM also provides basic health care to people living in some remote regions of the country. Based on positive experience of this initiative, AIM has recently received input from several dental professionals to broaden this service to include dental care. Provision of adequate dental care is generally neglected by governments in developing economies like India due to budgetary constraints, scarcity of resources, poor education and malnutrition. Oral diseases affect the quality of life of children both socially and psychologically and such adverse impacts carry forward into adulthood.
The World Health Organization has noted that the impact of untreated tooth decay on the growth and well-being of children causes recurring infections, eating difficulties, sleeping deficiency, emergencies, poor ability to learn, slow growth and development, malnutrition and impaired aesthetics. Dental caries affect most adults and about 60 to 90% of schoolchildren and they lead to millions of lost school days each year. Periodontal disease is a major cause of tooth loss in adults globally and oral cancer remains the eighth most common and most costly cancer.
Portable Units
Rural India is absolutely deprived of government funded dental services. As a result, AIM is proposing to expand its vision to provide dental care to children from remote areas of India with “Saving Lives One Tooth at a Time” initiative. The core of the AIM Dental Health Initiative is to provide dental care to children in AIM hostels utilizing a fully equipped vehicle with a portable unit and a dental chair. Such a method can easily access our target hostel communities in rural India. We need a single portable unit to start off with, with a goal of six units.
Each unit costs approximately $80,000. These portable units will be able to provide dental procedures such as cleanings, fillings and extractions, with the potential to provide other expanded procedures and treatments. Each vehicle will travel across hostels in the immediate region on a rotating schedule. All donations for this cause will be used for the provision of dental care, and all administration will be carried out by volunteers at no cost to the AIM Dental Health Initiative.
We also request the assistance of dental residency students from India and across the world, as well as qualified dentists, dental assistants, hygienists and volunteers eager to join the movement. Any contribution of time or simple donation, will bring “Saving Lives One Tooth at a Time” initiative a step closer to fruition. You have the opportunity to have a massive impact on a child’s life by playing the role of a catalyst. We strongly believe this goal is fully attainable, provided we all come together for this positive cause. We have the vision of providing a healthy quality of life, one that empowers and transforms a child’s ability to smile at life. This will help them expand their character to confidently carry out their dreams into their future endeavors that will result in uplifting the standard of living whole families.
In order to support this initiative, please contact Ms. Ioana Caracas-Lupu who has proactively volunteered to administer this program for AIM. She can be contacted at ioana_caracas@hotmail.com.