It's called Dental Bus and the sign on the side Kalusugang Pangkalahatan means "Health for all". It is the result of DO.it, a project born thanks to two Sardinians: Doctor Mariolino Lai, a doctor and dentist with over 40 years of experience, and engineer Paolo Porcu, who has the same experience but in project management and development.
They have brought free dental (and other) care to over a thousand patients both in some villages of the Philippine archipelago and in the slums of the Vyasarpadi district, on the outskirts of the Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras).
The two Sardinian philanthropists explain: «By coordinating a local staff in Palawan which included some dentists, nurses, drivers and special vehicles such as Dental buses, we have helped to bring relief, restore smiles and erase pain to more than a thousand patients in remote villages of the province and sailing towards very small islands of the Philippine archipelago. Relieving the pain meant carrying out multiple extractions on patients of all ages who, very often, met the local dentists employed in our mission for the first time».
The Sardinian project received the help of the authorities of the province of Palawan (Southern Philippines), and, in India, of the director of the Salesian Beatitudes Center in Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Father Joe Andrew.
Next goal, to gather support to return to the Philippines by June, before the monsoon season begins. «We will continue to involve our supporters through the pages created on social networks (Palawan project Do.it and Chennai project Do.it). We will then try to contact some sponsors, including primary Sardinian companies and pharmaceutical companies to enter our project on a permanent basis».
