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Donations Received by Tooth Fairy Project Top 1 Billion YenProjects include winter camp for seriously ill children, movie production, overseas school construction
The Nippon Foundation, together with the Japan Dental Association, launched the Tooth Fairy project in 2009 as a social contribution activity. The project collects and recycles precious metals (gold, silver, palladium, and platinum) from discarded dental implants and fillings, and uses the proceeds to support seriously ill children and their families in Japan, and to build schools and conduct other activities in Myanmar. Donations raised over the six years since the project was launched have recently surpassed one billion yen.
Japan has approximately 200,000 children with a serious illness or disability, and the Tooth Fairy project is Japan’s largest dedicated to the support of these children (as of March 31, 2015, according to the Japan Foundation Center). Approximately 6,100 dental clinics, or roughly 10% of Japan’s total, participate in the project, which has established medical facilities that provide specialized care for seriously ill children and their families in seven prefectures (Hokkaido, Miyagi, Tochigi, Yamanashi, Nara, Hyogo, and Kumamoto). The project also holds camps for these children, and dentists volunteer to teach proper oral care at these camps.
The project held 52 summer camps at locations around Japan during the summer of 2015, and the first winter camp will be held in February. The camp will last four days and three nights, with 14 people from four families attending. One of the families is from Tokyo, another is from Kanagawa Prefecture, and two are from Hokkaido, and they include three boys and one girl between the ages of 5 and 14 with a serious illness or disability. Together with the camp staff, the families will be able to enjoy horseback riding, horse-drawn sleigh rides, snow rafting, and exploring the winter forest to find a tree house that has been made wheelchair accessible, and the children will also be able to experience tracking animals in the snow and snow tubing. In addition to giving the children a chance to experience these winter activities, family members will have a respite from the home care that they normally provide.
Another recent project has been support for the production of the 90-minute documentary film Given. The film features three families, including one with a son who lost his left eye and half of his face for the removal of a malignant tumor, and another with a daughter who was born with trisomy 18. The third family gave birth to a daughter after five years of marriage, but as her speech, walking, and other functions regressed as she grew older, was diagnosed as having mucopolysaccharidosis (MDS). The film, which took three years to produce, shows the daily lives of these three families and how they are able to laugh despite the challenges they face. Given will be shown at the Uplink cinema in Shibuya, Tokyo, from February 6 to 29, and at Cine Libre Umeda in Osaka from March 26 to April 1, with additional screenings being planned for locations including Sendai, Hiroshima, and Okinawa.
Overseas, the project built eight schools in Myanmar in fiscal 2014, bringing the total number of schools built to 18. In addition, 33 dentists have joined volunteer tours that began in 2011 to visit areas where dental care is not available and teach proper brushing and oral care.
Contact
Communications Department
The Nippon Foundation
