A UK-based dental charity organization Smile4 Ghana, with its logistics partner Jonmoore International undertook a three-day dental screening and treatment for residents of Tema Newtown in the Greater Accra Region.
Scores of residents within Tema Newtown and surrounding communities benefitted from the free mass oral care which was held from April 26-28, 2022. The screening and provision of dental care on the final day was carried out at the St. Nicholas School, Bankuman for the pupils, staff and community.
The dental outreach is the initiative of three dental specialists based in the UK and their spouses. They are Dr. George and Mrs. Phil Brown, Dr. Malcom Farr and Mrs. Cynthia Kudzi-Farr and Dr. Chris Vondee and Mrs. Pat Vondee.
Speaking to journalists on the final day of the screening exercise, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Jonmoore, Mr. Hilton John Mitchell indicated that providing logistics support to Smile4Ghana for the mass oral care activity was the company’s small way of impacting the lives of people across the country, particularly in the area of healthcare.
“Like most organisations do, we always want to give back to society and the community within which we operate both directly and indirectly through the efforts of our staff and team. We’ve had this relationship with Smile4Ghana for quite a while now and the decision by the team is always to look at areas that are really critical and bring a meaningful impact to the people,” he said.
Mr. Mitchell added: “Our commitment as a company is to support the dentists who have come from the UK with all the logistics they’ll require to give the people of this community good dental care. This is what we do as a company and we are looking forward to supporting all the time.”
Jonmoore International as a socially responsible company focuses on a continuing commitment to contribute to the socio-economic development and improving the quality of life of its host communities in an ethical manner.
Beside healthcare, Jonmoore’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities focus on education and infrastructure development. The company has over the years supported the Tema Traditional Council Education Fund, making yearly donations to meet the educational needs of needy but brilliant students in the community.
It has also adopted Eugemont Orphanage and Peggy Good School of Hope, Ve-Kolonu , Volta Region. Jonmoore provides quarterly allocation of foodstuff to the orphanage for their wellbeing and supports the school with an educational trust among others.
“Per our CSR mandate, we focus on education, infrastructure development and health by supporting underprivileged communities specifically, parts of the country where things take so long to get to. That’s our direction,” Mr. Mitchel added.
Founder of Knight Smile Dental Centre in Accra and the leader of Smile4Ghana, Dr. George Brown indicated that most of the diseases that were treated over the three-day exercise were preventable and called for increased public health education.
On the choice of location for this year’s exercise, he said: “The decision to carry out this year’s activity in Tema was to ensure a slowly comeback as the pandemic had stopped the exercise for the past two years.
“We chose Tema Newtown also because it is a fishing community with relatively deprived residents, with the towns heavily linked to our partners Jonmoore and MPSG.”