“Doktor, SAYA GIGI SANGAT SAKIT!”

Dental diseases are often overlooked, particularly for vulnerable persons. Based on local findings from our founding dental screening project, some groups of persons with disabilities (PWDs) require an average of 3-4 extractions per person! This is worse than the situation in third-world countries.

These small dental tissues can result in big issues. Other than pain, do you know that dental diseases can worsen the symptoms of diabetes, stroke, heart diseases, dementia, and pneumonia? So instead of asking or waiting for patients to visit a dental clinic, let’s reach out to our patients at the comforts of their accommodations! goGIGIgo!

‘goGIGIgo’ is a novel initiative by the Special Oral Care Network (SOCN) to promote community-based and low-carbon footprint mobile dental services. The goal is to make dentistry accessible to frail seniors and PWDs. In addition, dental teams from volunteer groups, public institutions or private organisations can also rent and share these high quality portable items. We hope to empower more dental professionals to conduct outreach to nursing homes, disability centers, or beneficiaries at community events.

goGIGIgo will also include essential professional training for dental teams or volunteers managing significant disabilities, elderly, and medical complexities. This supports continuing dental education where SOCN is an approved training provider under the Singapore Dental Council.

Funds raised will be used to:

(1) Purchase the BPR Swiss Smart-Port portable dental unit. This is made available in Singapore as the first high-performance combined portable unit, by the collaborative support of SOCN and Eastland Dental Supplies
(2) Purchase the Rextar (Posdion) portable dental x-ray with VistaScan 2.0 (Durr Dental) x-ray reader. This is made available in Singapore as the first portable dental x-ray system, by the collaborative support of SOCN, SmiTech Asia, NEA, HSA, and NCMP Dr Shahira Abdullah
(3) Purchase a customised tricycle/transport system to enable mobile dentistry

The top 3 donors (individuals or corporations) will be invited to display their names or logos on the equipment as a token of gratitude.

The immediate targeted beneficiary community will be within Ang Mo Kio Teck Ghee catchment area, including disability centres, ageing centres, and various nursing homes but we hope to expand our operations in the near future.

All excess funding will be forwarded to the Happee Hearts Movement and Ray of Hope. Thank you all for your kind and generous support.

About Special Oral Care Network (SOCN)

SOCN is an approved training provider under the Singapore Dental Council.

Dr David Lim is a community-based special care dentist, president of the SOCN, run director of Bishan parkrun, and clinical director of the Special Smiles programme of Special Olympics Singapore. He received his special care dentistry training from University College of London in 2017, and has since seen many PWDs and frail seniors who fail to access dental treatment in time though his practice. He hopes to give voices to this vulnerable group, and raise awareness of inclusive oral health.

In the upcoming September’s Run for Inclusion 2023 (by Runninghour Co-operative Ltd), Dr David will run for inclusive oral health under the SOCN. Dr David will be running with 20kg of dental equipment in this 10km race. After completing that, he will go on to set up the dental equipment and conduct free dental screenings at the event. This campaign hopes to raise awareness of the importance of oral health, and the value of accessible and inclusive oral dental services.

About Ray of Hope

100% of your donations to Ray of Hope go to people in need. We do not take a cut from the funds. We even cover 3rd party credit card charges that other crowdfunding platforms deduct from your donation for campaigns.

100% of all campaigns are also fully verified, so you know your funds goes to real people with real needs.

We take donor accountability very seriously – with yearly audited accounts and strong governance in place to ensure that your donations is properly channeled to the beneficiaries.

Ray of Hope is a registered charity and a member of the National Council of Social Services.