In February 2017, a cohort of dental students travelled to Athens, Greece where they assisted in providing dental care to refugees and conducted oral hygiene workshops in Skaramagas Refugee camp. Dental decay was found to be extremely prevalent due to patient diet, accessibility to care and oral hygiene practices. Due to the extensive nature of the work, time constraints and resource availability focus was directed on reducing disease burden through prevention. 

The students designed the ‘Healthy Smiles’ programme, an oral hygiene education and dietary advice workshop to deliver to children in the Skaramagas camp. Our aim was to improve the oral health literacy of this population. In collaboration with Organization Earth, the workshops were to be delivered to children aged between 5 and 17 in four separate schools within the camp: Hope School, The British Council School, International Rescue Committee and Save the Children.

The Skaramagas refugee camp is home to over 3,500 refugees of Syrian, Kurdish, Iraqi and Afghan origin. Disturbingly, half of them are children, of which 200 are unaccompanied minors. Containers were converted into schools and houses, with two families per trailer sharing a toilet. The workshops ran simultaneously throughout the day in separate schools and trailers, each one led by a pair of volunteers. Diet advice was delivered to the chidlren, which included reducing the frequency and amount of sugary food and drinks. Using a large mouth model and toothbrush, children were taught how to brush their teeth. An oral hygienepack, an activity book and crayons were given to each child as well as a leaflet reinforcing the oral hygiene instructions, dietary advice and tobacco cessation advice translated into the Arabic, Farsi and Kurdish.

An account of the experiences of dental students in the refugee camps was published in the British Dental Journal.