If the history of Christian has made you think and you also want to help this cause to change the world
ACTS
Attention, a question: raise your hand the one who likes going to the dentist, even if it is for a review; it does not say if it is for a filling or an implant. Yes, it is one of the visits that we do with more fear, and not just because of the theme of the pocket. Unless you call Teresa Toledo, in whose case will go to the dentist of thousand loves. Who is she?
Teresa Toledo is 51 years old and lives in Barcelona. A while ago, just went out to the street. In the social services of the City he had been told that the state of their teeth was one of its major self-esteem issues. I had requested several estimates to fix his worn dentures, but asking for 18,000 euros, a figure that I could not pay with his pension of 640 euros for total disability. The years passed by, the teeth were in a poor state and Teresa did not go out of house, or much less, smiled.
Until she met the clinic of Christian Vargas, Les 1001 Dents. In this particular clinic there are two entrances, one for those who can afford to pay for dental treatment and another for those who do not. And, as if of a great trick of the conjurer is concerned, that some paid for their visits to the dentist, serves to cover the happiness of those who have lost almost everything. Up the smile.
expand photo The team of Christian, working. Relinquished by Les 1001 Dents
One of the patients without this smile was Joseph. When we derived, through the social worker, the clinic of Vargas, he had no idea that would grow out of it, several months later, with what he referred to as the Ferrari of the denture: “I have 16 implants, which can be around 25,000 euros. This smile serves to eat everything. All of that comes out in the announcement of the tele. I say that I can eat up to an ice bar,” he says.
Of Africa in the neighbourhood of Gràcia
The ideologue of this project is dr. Christian Vargas, implantologist and specialist in oral surgery. Vargas creates smiles, arranges mouths, and, somehow, manages souls. He wanted to be a doctor: “The fact of cure to the people I liked a lot. But then I thought that I would most like to care for the animals, and I went more towards the veterinary. I liked the nature, the animals… until someone I made the comment: ‘do you Know that if you are a veterinarian at some point you have to sacrifice to the animals?’. And I answered: ‘No, No’. And I do not know what association of ideas made between a veterinarian and a doctor, and I went to the dentist.”
Vargas was always a sports person of a team, to work with others and, also, to ponder: “In a moment you realize and say: ‘Oysters, do this that I have studied in addition to could not serve to other people?’. Then you ask: ‘why not bring dentistry to places that maybe people don’t have that same access?. Got an NGO, purely dental, and our idea is to bring dentistry in the form of toy cars dental the villages”.
expand photo Christian Vargas. We are 5
And in this way ended up in the unknown: Africa. “We went to three countries on the continent. Take a camioncito, ride in a dental chair, to 10 friends and say: ‘Come, we now cross Morocco, Sahara, Mauritania and even Senegal… and wherever we go, we can go on serving the people’. It was like discovering a new continent”. And we gave them well, so well that he ended up founding the NGO Planet Action for international projects specialized in the topic of dental, but also of development, with special emphasis on the theme of education and children.
But you already know the saying, “give a fish or teach how to fish”. To unmanageability of the needs in certain areas of Africa and the frustration of not getting more, in one of the villages in which they were fixing mouths decided to teach the basic concepts of dentistry, providing basic training among the local population: “it Is very important that all of us have an attitude very proactive, do things beyond expect a result or not.”
These things he was doing for the african continent, encouraged him to make another, this time in Barcelona. “After nine years doing international projects, there comes a moment in every time that I go back home the comment, or what comes out on the table, is: ‘Well, you’re going out, but really here at home there are people who have situations, you live wrong, or you have problems”. And so was born the clinic 1001 Dents: “Are 1.001 teeth as the 1001 nights. When we do travel with the NGO, we thought: ‘And how many teeth we get it?’. So, they seem a thousand, two thousand, always think about it, the 1001: a, we need one more”.
pay it forward
At the clinic of the private party to work 14 professionals while in the solidarity there are two people, and the rest are volunteers. The 13% of the benefit obtained by the conventional treatments intended for patients of the clinic of solidarity. But the chain of solidarity does not end there: patients who are receiving treatments such solidarity should return that good deed, lending a hand in whatever way they can to a bank of time. In this way, the chain of favors continues on its course.
expand photo entrance Door to Les 1001 Dents in Barcelona. Pepo Jiménez
But let us return to the concept of “teach a man to fish”. It is not ok to people without resources, without more. It is to leave a mark, to mobilize the staff to do something, anything, that can. This is not, in short, to give alms, but to initiate a change. “We chose those patients who, in addition to having no resources, people will opt for themselves, who want to do something for themselves, that they do not conform because the thing has gone wrong. These, with pleasure and eager, we serve, we care, but we want it to be a motor and that can spread to people to encourage them to do things in solidarity… In the world of money, we accept that they can not pay, but in the world of the attitude, sure you can do something to afford it. Whatever are we going to do, we’re going to assess with a measurement of the time bank, which has a maximum of 30 hours. No one has ever done more than 30 hours to afford it,” explains Vargas. Like Joseph, the denture Ferrari.
An encounter enriching
What is really nice of this initiative, beyond re-make smile to people who perhaps have forgotten the reasons for doing so, is the encounter between two worlds, that of the two doors. In the holidays we are assembled to commemorate the birth of the clinic (because not everything is going to be to pull teeth, there is also feasting), friendships are made. “There are friends of the social part and the private part I’m convinced that they never would have recognized on the street and has been in this hall. And recognized,” explains Vargas.
there is nothing like the encounters to banish prejudices. And always, with a smile. In the clinic, which has left them small, serving about 3,500 people in the social part, and practically the same figure in the private. Are assessing new openings, because when the change starts, it is unstoppable.
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Content adapted from the video of Christian
00:00
Not everyone has access to a dental health conditions. In 2012 Christian Vargas he opened Les 1001 Dents, a dental clinic of solidarity where, with your treatments, finance the of people with fewer resources. Already have treated more than 3,500 patients.
00:24
MORE INFORMATION
Change the world from the cup of the toilet How to understand the fire reinventing fire
small wanted to be a doctor. The fact of cure to the people I liked a lot. And dentistry for me is a medical act and in addition to my profession I like.
00:37
I Founded the NGO Planet Action and our idea will be: “we’re Going to bring dentistry in the form of toy cars dental”. We crossed Morocco, Sahara, Mauritania and even Senegal. And since I come here I’m going to work and I’m going to do the maximum possible”.
01:00
After about nine years doing international projects, I thought of the idea of setting up a project in the city of Barcelona and with the same as we were outside we set up what is the concept of Les 1001 Dents.
01:15
Les 1001 Dents this is a project that aims to provide oral health to all people. It has two doors. By entering individuals who do not have the resources and these people come arising, or of associations, foundations…
01:34
On the basis of the treatment that we will give him a budget of what it would cost if it were the private party, because in the private part there is a person, that same treatment as you are paying for. Then, as it is a chain, we understand that if somebody comes and pays for his treatment and the other receives it as you will have more choice which you get to do something for those who have paid for their treatment.
01:57
Whatever are we going to do, and we will evaluate on a measurement of the time bank, which has a maximum of 30 hours to afford it. We want people to do things, that we all have an attitude and very proactive. We want to be a motor that could spread to people to encourage them to do things together.
02:17
The teeth have a direct relationship with other parts of the body, and in addition that is related to emotions. Through the smile, we are committed to care for the person in an integrated way. Not only cures a topic point of a tooth, but you’re healing a person.
This content has been developed by Yoigo.
