 On April 13 in 2010, the Busan Metropolitan City Office of Education (BOE) established a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ‘With Together’, a voluntary medical NGO, in an effort to promote the dental health of students from low-income families in the Busan area. Forty dentists belonging to ‘With Together’ will select qualified students who are in need through negotiation with their schools. The BOE will provide part of the amount required for dental treatment and administrative services.
The agreement, which holds good from May 2010 until February 2011, extends the scope of dental treatment to include wide coverage: fillings, root canals, x-rays, tooth extractions, and scaling. The beneficiaries of the MOU are 2,346 students from 291 schools including; children of households at the absolute and secondary poverty levels, children from legally single-parent families and multi-cultural families, and children of families in crisis and those who defected from the North.
On the same day, Dr. Seol Dong-gun, the mayor of education, awarded a letter of appreciation to 18 dentists including Youn Hee-sung, a dentist who has been involved in the MOU for the last year. It was determined that these 18 dentists contributed to solving students’ physical problems resulting from tooth loss as well as reducing the cost of the treatment for 1,057 students of the low-paid.
What is very meaningful is that ‘With Together’ has elevated the level of welfare of children from low income families in poor areas together with the cooperation of citizen groups.
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