As a part of it’s CSR drive and with a pledge to provide the local people a healthy life, the Essar Steel at Paradeep launched another health care program on 22nd December 2012.The program entitled Healthy Smiles Program aims to achieve excellent dental health and hygiene among school children in schools located in 17 villages of three specific Gram Panchayats-Nuagarh, Paradeepgarh and Bhutamundai of Kujanga Block in Jagatsinghpur district. All these three Gram Panchayats are located near ESSAR’s Steel Plant Complex at Paradeep.
Mr Pramod Gupta head of Essar Steel of Paradeep Complex said that “Essar Steel believes in giving back to the society and as a part of its CSR drive we have organized this camp. This camp was the first of a series of dental camps that shall be organized as part a comprehensive dental health program for school children.”
Mr Gupta said that “This Healthy Smiles Program has been designed to cover around 6000 school children from 26 schools of 17 villages across 3 Gram Panchayats in a span of one year and we are sure that people will get maximum benefit out of such camps. This is a part of our CSr drive and we will take up several such programs in the near future which will cater to the health care needs of the people.”
The program was launched in Chakradharpur villages and children of the primary and high schools located in the village were provided comprehensive dental check up services by ban expert team of five dental doctors. The intervention included cavity filling and awareness generation on maintaining excellent dental health and hygiene. Apart from personal counseling by the doctors, printed literature was distributed to the children which they can preserve and refer to in their day to day lives to prevent dental problems.
The program exclusively focuses on school children and staff. On the inaugural day 212 children benefitted from the dental camp which consisted on 114 girls and 98 boys. Eleven of these children were found to have cavities which were attended to by the doctors on the spot. Apart from school children 10 members of staff of the school and a few parents also utilized the expertise made available in this camp.
