This charitable endeavour was also possible thanks to the help of Proclinic, Ancladén and Normon, medical and dental supply companies which donated part of the materials.

The students from the faculties of Dentistry and Medicine, as well as the university staff, were stationed in Ngeba, a small village three-hundred kilometres south of Kinshasa. Here, villagers live under extremely precarious conditions, as they are without a continuous supply of electricity and water. Given these logistical constraints, the dental team was only able to perform extractions, for example, as electrical equipment could not be used.

One thing the dentists found surprising was the absence of pathologies commonly seen in developing and industrialised countries, such as cavities, a clear indication of the region’s level of poverty. Seeing as the inhabitants lack the economic resources to make refined sugar and its derivatives part of their regular diet, paradoxically, they actually have better oral hygiene than we do.

The medical team, on the other hand, was forced to treat a wide range of illnesses, particularly those related to tropical diseases, which abound in the region.