Unspoken Smiles, founded by Haitian-American Jean Paul Laurent is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching proper oral hygiene skills and healthy habits to children living in under-served communities around the world.
A native of Haiti, Jean Paul came to the United States in 2004 with a suitcase and a dream. Since arriving in this country, he has taken charge of developing himself academically and professionally by remaining engaged, exploring all viable options, and remaining committed to his dream. He entered the dental hygiene profession with uncertain specialty of choice. However, upon completion of that degree, he was able to build a great professional foundation for himself. It was from this moment on that he truly found his passion for dentistry and helping the less fortunate. In the past four years, Jean Paul has selflessly provided his time and expertise to assist those who are less fortunate.
His interest in non-profit was drawn from his appreciation of one of his favorite moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham who emphasized the principle of utilitarianism usually define as maximizing happiness to the greatest number of people and reducing suffering. He hope to build on this by expending the work he already started through his non-profit foundation called “ Unspoken smiles” which was founded in March of 2011 a year after the devastating Haiti’s earthquake in 2010. The purpose of this foundation is to conduct non-partisan research, educational, and informational activities that will increase public awareness through Education and Prevention and would promote fundamental improvements in the overall oral health status of at-risk children living in underserved countries around the world. – ( source)
Unspoken Smile mission is to create a school-based program to educate children on sustainable improvements in oral health and hygiene, to provide educated youth with professional and technical dental training to help end the dentist shortage in under-served communities around the world, to reduce dental caries experience in children, to reduce untreated dental decay in children and help them develop healthy habits, to increase utilization of oral health system and to increase preventive dental services for low-income children and adolescents.
Project Haiti:
Unspoken Smiles Foundation is currently working in La Vallée de Jacmel, Haiti and focuses on a school-based program for children to achieve sustainable improvements in their oral hygiene health. In the recent trip for the 2014-2015 academic year, nearly 1000 children received our dental prevention and education program. All children received oral hygiene education, toothbrushes, and toothpastes, all at no cost in order to support good oral hygiene practices. Our programs operate solely for a week in the school perimeters mainly to reduce the usual transportation barriers to accessing dental hygiene care. In order to ensure sustainability, unspoken smiles will visit the same school twice a year to initiate meaningful and long lasting changes in their habits. The first visit will focus on education and prevention, and collection of basic oral health data, while the second trip will provide dental treatment services such as fillings, extraction, sealants, dental prophylaxis.
Unspoken Smiles Institute:
The mission of this project is to create job opportunities for educated, but unemployed youth in impoverished countries such as Haiti by providing world-class professional and technical training in the dental field leading directly to career-building jobs as well as advancing the Unspoken Smiles’ mission to create access to quality dental care for the community.
Volunteer Opportunity:
School Based Program Volunteers
Volunteering with Unspoken Smiles will provide you an opportunity to develop your professional skills while expanding your professional network through working along with other like-minded professionals. We offer three ways to serve Unspoken Smiles and with your help, we can teach proper oral hygiene skills and healthy habits to children living in under-served communities around the world.
To donate and help out their current crowd rise click here. To visit and learn more about the organization click here.
