[Unpad.ac.id, 2/08/2016] Unpad Students held Saung Kaulinan Waos program to educate children about oral health. Initiated in September 2015 Saung Waos Kaulinan has already started its activity in Sukanegla village, Jatinangor in March 2016.
This program was created to train the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor ability related to children’s oral health. This course was designed by game-based learning method and experiential learning process. The concept of the games is designed to be portable. It is intended to be applicable not only in the Sukanegla village.
The background implementation of this program is to provide prevalence of dental caries in children as a significant clinical problem. Prevention to address the problems of oral and dental hygiene is better than treatment because when teeth and mouth has been exposed to diseases including caries it could be hard to treat.
However, challenges arise in these preventive efforts. Methods of prevention to children are often ineffective in reality. The applied method is usually limited to one direction counseling. Whereas extension in one direction often does not leave time because the effects of children who become the object of education is not involved emotionally to these awareness efforts. This is the base objective of Saung Kaulinan Waos.
“The lack of knowledge related to oral health and bad habits of teeth care in the community is also a driving factor for Saung Kaulinan Waos implementation,” said Umi Latifah, the initiator of Saung Kaulinan Waos who is also students of Faculty of Dentistry, Universitas Padjadjaran.
The main target of Saung Kaulinan Waos program is children aged 6-12 years or the equivalent of elementary school age. The name itself is taken from Sundanese language, which means “place to play teeth”. The activities have been conducted with the communities among which social mapping (assessment), counseling to parents, and unique games for the children.
One of the games in Saung Kaulinan Waos is Bacteria Dental Appliances shaped like snakes and ladders. Wherever it is going, children will get questions about oral health. Bacteria Dental Appliances was created to train the child’s cognitive ability. In addition, there is also anecdotal Tooth Fairy tales of everyday life to train children to be affective or to regularly maintain healthy teeth and mouth. To train psychomotor, besides given game Bacteria Dental Appliances, there is gymnastics brush teeth together (Gogiber). The community, especially children, is very welcome and is eager to play the game again.
The main persons and co-founders who runs the program is referred to as the tooth fairies. They are Shofi, Bella, Rio, and Devi. The Tooth Fairy will be assisted by volunteers called Friends of the Tooth Fairy. It was not just the dentist or dental students could join Saung Kaulinan Waos, but all sorts of people from diverse educational backgrounds, such as from Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, and Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences.
“Saung Kaulinan is very open to anyone who would like to volunteer in this activity,” said Shofi.
Currently Saung Kaulinan Waos continues to develop its activities. More recently they received an invitation to implement the program in in Krida Nusantara Elementary School, Cibiru.*
Released by Rio Alfajri / art
