Posted on August 31, 2018.
Global Dental Relief welcomes and works with volunteers from a wide range of careers and backgrounds. Beyond the dental field – lawyers, teachers, students and many other professionals join GDR teams across the globe, sharing the common purpose to improve the health of children.
Regardless of professional and educational background, studies show that volunteering with your family leads to a richer experience. Sharing the joy that comes from helping children live happier, healthier lives creates bonds that last a lifetime!
Dentist, Brent Dryden, volunteering with his daughter Sophie in Cambodia.
Here’s why you should consider volunteering in a GDR clinic with your family:
1.) Expose your significant other, child or parent to a new culture.
Traveling and volunteering in another country is practically a Social Studies class that has come to life.
Far beyond the usual travel experience – involving tour guides, buses and busy tourist sites – volunteering with GDR whisks you into another dimension, completely. You find yourself among other families, not like your own – working in a local school or municipal building, far from any tourist activity or distractions. This is where life happens, and where connections are created!
2.) Opportunity to try new things
Families are used to their daily routine. We come and go, often without taking the time to truly connect with family members. The volunteer experience offers families a chance to break free from the daily grind and try something new! Where else can a teenager learn how to assist a dentist or apply fluoride varnish to hundreds of kids? You can bet the dinner conversation after a day of working in a clinic is much different than you are used to!
3.) The whole family can participate
Because of the wide variety of volunteer positions in the clinic, there is a meaningful job for everyone in the family. Anyone can participate – from kids as young as 14 to grandparents. At the clinic briefing, each volunteer is trained by their trip leader to perform different jobs within the clinic. All volunteers are required to bring is a positive attitude and the willingness to work hard! From sterilizing instruments, applying fluoride varnish, teaching oral health education lessons, or keeping master records – every job is an important cog in the clinic wheel.
Dentist, Grant Rutherford, volunteering with his mom Linda in Nepal.
4.) Love
Love, love, love – yes, it sounds cliché, but where else do you get to spend an entire day with your loved ones? Volunteering with your family is just that. You simply get to be with your loved ones. You share experiences with one another that are hard to put into words. You get to share the wonderful – and often unexplainable – feeling of love that comes from contributing to the well-being of children in need around the globe!
This year Global Dental Relief has 45 families who are volunteering together in clinics in five countries. Together families experience the joy and deep satisfaction of working hand in hand to bring dental care to hundreds of children in need around the globe. Won’t you be our forty-sixth family?
Married couple, Tom Easley and Ann Baker Easley, volunteering together in Cambodia.
Join your loved ones, and come on the experience of a lifetime!
Email volunteer@globaldentalrelief.org today to register for a clinic.