Oral diseases currently affect around 3.5 billion people in the world – it is primarily the poorest, most disadvantaged and most marginalised populations who are suffering the most.

Bridge2Aid is working in exciting new ways so it has a bigger impact on oral health, and a lower impact on the environment. It's going to be flying fewer volunteers to Africa and working much more closely with African dental professionals. These local professionals are going to be delivering the majority of their training – and the training is going to be covering much more. This also means that Bridge2Aid will be more nimble, able to support projects in a wider range of countries, and impact on many thousands more lives.

In February, it worked in partnership with Tanzanian dentists to deliver training and education around the issue of infant oral mutilation to nearly 500 health workers, community educators and school teachers in northern Tanzania. You can find out more about this work here.

In March it worked with dental therapists in Malawi to train 90 community health workers, teachers and youth workers to become oral health promoters in their villages, and have much more planned for the rest of the year.

If you would like to support its work, and help prevent oral disease and pain, sign up to its Treat 1: Train 1 scheme. Just donate the income from treating one patient in pain in your practice in the UK each month and it can train one oral health promoter in a rural community in East Africa. Click here for more information.

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