Project Smile offers dental makeover for the poor

May 21, 2014

 

The initiator of Project Smile, Dr. Amy Traore, has said the organisation would be offering free dental surgery worth millions of naira to three indigent persons in the country.

Traore at a media parley in Lagos said the beneficiaries would be selected from a pool of applicants with poor dentition.

The orthodontist said the initiative, which is in its fourth year, is to give hope to the less privileged who would not be able to afford dental care.

She said, “We want to reach out to the less privileged who suffer dental flaws and have become stigmatised in the society. The best way to celebrate healthy smiles is by giving people who can’t afford to smile the lifetime opportunity to do so.

“We would be giving the three contestants the benefits of a dental makeover worth millions of naira.”

A beneficiary of its maiden edition in 2011, Mrs. Chichi Anosike, said she had lost her self esteem before the treatment.

She said, “I did not have confidence and it was really hard being myself. Many times, I wanted to laugh heartily to a joke, give my candid opinion on issues or just have a swell time, but all I could manage was a slight tilt of my lips which was, most often, misinterpreted to be a sneer.