University of Otago dentistry academics Dr Colleen Murray and Dr Jonathan Leichter have received a grant to help extend a successful oral health programme from the Cook Islands to Dunedin's Pacific community.
The two academics this week received about $1300 in funding, through a New Zealand Dental Association Wrigley Company Foundation Community Service Grant, in association with World Oral Health Day, on Wednesday.
Dr Leichter said that for the past seven years, senior Otago dentistry students had been taking part in an oral health programme, which he had helped to initiate, in the Cook Islands.
In June, the latest group of students, supervised by Dr Murray and him, had again provided much-needed dental and other oral health care.
And, the Cook Islands Dental Service received supplies and equipment to allow them to carry on treatment when the Otago group returned to New Zealand.
About $250,000 - about half in cash and half in donated dentistry equipment and products - had been raised to support the project since it began, he said.
More recently, Dr Murray and Dr Leichter had been involved in helping further raise oral health awareness among the Pacific community in Dunedin.
The funding grant had been used to develop educational materials and an audiovisual presentation for the Pacific community at St Paul's Cathedral this weekend, he said.
Andersons Bay Community Kindergarten has also received a $240 grant from the NZDA, through the Dental Health Foundation, to buy food and materials to support oral health activities being run by the kindergarten this week.
Lyn Pentecost, of the kindergarten, said activities were helping raise oral health awareness among both children and parents.
