ALLIANCE FOR GOOD HEALTH
Building habits that protect smiles for life
Overview
Oral Health Promotion:
“Dientes sanos te dan buena salud y
una linda sonrisa"
In 2024, Alliance for Good Health launched a comprehensive oral health education program across 11 Indigenous communities in Beni, Bolivian Amazon. The program was developed through community needs assessments and direct input from local leaders.
The program focused on:
• Daily toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste
• Reducing sugary snacks and sweetened drinks
• Understanding how cavities develop — and how to prevent them
Educational sessions were delivered in schools and community spaces, featuring hands-on demonstrations and supervised brushing activities. Children received toothbrushes and toothpaste to reinforce healthy habits at home.
Oral health education sessions in one of 11 Indigenous communities in Beni, Bolivian Amazon.
Peer Educators:
“Defensores de los Dientes”​
A cornerstone of the program is the training of peer educators, known as Defensores de los Dientes. Children ages 9–12 are selected to serve as role models and educators within their schools.
Peer educators learned:
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• Proper toothbrushing technique
• The role of fluoride in preventing cavities
• How to teach peers through demonstration and encouragement
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Working alongside health promoters, they lead classroom activities and supervise brushing sessions using plaque-disclosing tablets, enabling children to visualize missed areas.
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Each Defensor received a T-shirt to reinforce leadership, pride, and sustainability.
This model multiplies impact—turning one lesson into hundreds of daily reminders.
Pink staining from plaque-disclosing tablets helps children visualize where brushing needs improvement.
Children learning proper toothbrushing techniques
with fluoride toothpaste as part of daily prevention.
Building leadership and confidence
through child-led oral health education
A Defensor’s Voice
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“It was the best day of my life.”
A participant from Puerto Motor shared this after traveling to Carmen Soledad for the Defensores de los Dientes training. With coordination from community leaders and A4GH partners, she returned to her school as a peer educator.
Help a child become a leader who strengthens their entire community.
Building Habits Through Visual Reminders
As part of oral health education during medical and dental brigades, children—including the Defensores de los Dientes—created drawings of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other images representing healthy habits. These drawings were placed in their homes as daily visual reminders to brush.
This simple activity helped children take ownership of their oral health. By creating their own reminders, they turned one lesson into a daily habit. Many children taped their drawings near kitchen walls—small, visible prompts to brush each morning and night.
When children create their own reminders, daily prevention becomes part of everyday life.
Education for Mothers & Early Childhood Care
Educational sessions were held for mothers of children under five, focusing on practical early childhood oral care:
​• Cleaning infants’ gums and emerging teeth
• Preventing early childhood cavities
• Limiting sugary foods and sweetened drinks
Mothers learned simple, practical techniques, including how to use clean cloths to gently clean infants’ gums and teeth. Follow-up home visits reinforced these lessons and allowed for individualized guidance.
Practical skills help mothers protect their children’s smiles from the very beginning.
Adolescent Health Education
In Puerto Motor, Alliance for Good Health supported adolescent health education sessions addressing:
​• Basic anatomy and reproductive health
• Contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted infections
• Consent and healthy relationships
Sessions were held with community approval and included both adolescents and parents, reflecting local trust and engagement. By creating a safe space to discuss sensitive topics, these sessions help young people make informed decisions about their health and relationships.​
Adolescent health education delivered with community approval and cultural sensitivity.
From early childhood to adolescence, these programs work together to prevent disease before it begins. What started in 2024 across 11 Indigenous communities continues through medical brigades, peer educator training, and family-based education. With sustained support, Alliance for Good Health will return in 2026 to strengthen and expand this community-led prevention model in Beni.
Safe Drinking Water Education
In 2024, Alliance for Good Health conducted safe drinking water education in the San Antonio community, focusing on practical, low-cost methods families could use daily to reduce waterborne illness.
After interviewing families about their current water practices, our team visited individual homes to demonstrate step-by-step techniques for making drinking water safer. Education included boiling water, using small amounts of household bleach to kill bacteria, and solar water treatment methods appropriate for the local environment.
By tailoring education to each household’s needs and demonstrating methods directly in the home, families gained the skills and confidence to consistently apply safe water practices—reducing preventable illness and protecting children’s health.
Safe water also strengthens oral health—making daily toothbrushing safer and allowing fluoride to work effectively without introducing new sources of infection.
Home-based education on safe drinking water practices, tailored to each family’s needs.
Impact:
By teaching practical water treatment methods that families can maintain independently, this program helped families protect their children from illness—day after day, long after the lesson ended.
When families can safely treat their own water, prevention does not depend on our presence. It continues—every day—in their homes.
Why Oral Health Promotion Matters
In the remote Indigenous communities we serve, dental caries is one of the most common and painful health problems—yet it is largely preventable. Limited access to routine dental care makes education and daily prevention essential to protecting children’s health.
Our community-based health promotion programs teach families practical skills—daily brushing with fluoride toothpaste, healthier nutrition choices, and early recognition of dental problems—so children experience less pain, fewer infections, and fewer extractions over time. By investing in prevention, donors help turn short-term dental visits into lasting improvements in children’s oral health.
Education sparks awareness.
Self-efficacy creates action.
Action builds habits that protect children’s health long after we leave.
When donors invest in prevention, they are not funding a one-time brigade.
They are helping communities build habits that last for years.
How We Turn Smiles Into Lasting Health
How “Dientes Sanos te dan Buena Salud y
Una Linda Sonrisa” Works
Healthy smiles don’t come from information alone—they come from confidence, practice, and daily reminders. Alliance for Good Health uses simple, child-centered behavior change tools to help families turn oral health education into lifelong habits.
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Learning by Example (Modeling)
Children learn best by watching others they trust. Peer educators (Defensores de los Dientes), health promoters, and clinicians demonstrated proper brushing techniques, showing children that healthy habits are achievable and empowering. -
Daily Reminders (Nudges)
Children created their own drawings of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and healthy smiles during brigade activities. These drawings were taken home and displayed as gentle daily reminders—encouraging brushing long after the session ended. -
Practice Builds Habits (Repetition)
Key messages were repeated across school sessions, home visits, and community activities. Repetition helped normalize brushing with fluoride toothpaste as part of everyday life. -
Seeing Makes Learning Stick (Feedback)
Plaque-disclosing tablets were used so children could see where brushing was missed. This immediate feedback turned brushing into an interactive learning experience—and built confidence to improve technique.
To reinforce these messages, a large educational banner—“Dientes Sanos te dan Buena Salud y Una Linda Sonrisa”—was displayed at the health center, serving as a constant visual reminder that oral health is directly connected to overall well-being.
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Through peer role models, hands-on brushing, and child-created reminders,
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children learn “I can do this.”
First implemented across 11 communities in 2024, these programs continue to evolve in partnership with local leaders. In 2025, we returned to support clinical services and reinforce prevention efforts. Plans for 2026 focus on deepening training and expanding access—depending on funding and community collaboration.
What We Learned From Families
Before designing our oral health programs, Alliance for Good Health conducted needs assessments in the communities of Carmen Soledad and Puerto Motor to understand daily practices, barriers to care, and how oral disease was affecting families with young children.
When we asked mothers about the previous three months, the findings were sobering:
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82% of children had at least one oral health symptom
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71% experienced dental pain
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65% had difficulty chewing
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41% struggled with daily activities due to pain or loss of taste
Oral disease was not only common — it was disrupting children’s nutrition, comfort, and family life.
What Families Told Us
Through in-depth conversations, families shared patterns that shaped our program design:
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Dental care was often sought only when pain became severe
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Preventive cleanings were rare
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Sugary drinks and juices were widely consumed
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Many children brushed alone, without adult guidance
These insights made one thing clear:
Prevention must begin early, involve caregivers, and continue beyond a single clinic visit.
THE CHALLENGE​
Children in rural Beni, Bolivia, experience some of the highest rates of dental caries in the region. With limited access to routine care, families often seek treatment only when pain becomes severe—leading to infections, missed school, and preventable tooth loss.​
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OUR RESPONSE​
We partner with communities to build practical skills and daily habits that protect health long before pain begins. Through hands‑on education, fluoride brushing, and confidence‑building activities, families learn how to care for their own health every day.
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2024–2025 IMPACT • 11 communities reached • 400+ children engaged in oral health education • 1,000+ toothbrushes and fluoride toothpaste distributed • 600+ restorative treatments delivered through mobile brigades.
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WHY IT MATTERS​
Prevention means fewer infections, fewer extractions, and fewer days children spend suffering instead of learning, playing, and growing. Healthy smiles open the door to healthier futures.​
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YOUR ROLE​​
Your support brings prevention and care possible to communities that would otherwise go without—helping children stay healthy, confident, and pain‑free.
Community-based health education in Beni
builds practical skills thatprevent disease.