Penny Appeal, a Gambia-registered charity headquartered in the UK, has provided dental care to orphanage children and communities in West Coast Region.
Speaking at the dental care event held at Chow’s School of Excellence, Lamin Jobe, head of operation Penny Appeal Gambia, said the dental programme was designed to provide dental care services to Penny Appeal orphans and other targeted communities in West Coast Region
He said the organisation is mainly engaged in social development and charity work.
“The dental programme is very important because many Gambians have never visited a dentist in their lives. We believe this is an opportunity for many underprivileged people to once in their lifetime meet a dentist,” he said.
He said the charity also supports education, health, and construct mosques and boreholes.
“We also provide help for the elderly people,” he added.
Jobe said many people have also benefitted from their eye operation service “and we are pleased that people appreciate what we do”.
The head of programmes Penny Appeal Gambia, said the organisation has ten orphan centres with 400 children who all benefitted from the six days dental programme.
“We have about five dentists from the UK who are here to provide these vital services for our children. We will have the same intervention in Darsilami and Bwiam as part of our community outreach programmes. We are aware dental care is inadequate in this country. This is why we want to endeavour to reach out to as many people as we can,” he said.
He said there are efforts to involve greater number of Gambians in the future to ensure wider coverage.
“In our next programme we will try and engage Gambian doctors to conduct pre-screening for us so that when the team arrives from the UK we would be able to reach a wider coverage. We are also planning to roll out dental education in our schools,” he added.
Member Rafeen Actaf said the organisation is “100% donation driven” that is interested to help the poor and underprivileged.
She called it an “honour” to travel to The Gambia from Glasgow to give back to needy Gambian children.
“We traveled from afar and we are exhausted but it does not matter now.
“I am blessed to see the difference we are making to the lives of these kids, and I cannot thank our donors and supporters enough for their support,” said Actaf.
