Chew for Change
Every child deserves to smile. That’s why Extra® is continuing its decade-long ‘Chew for Change’ campaign to support SOS Children’s Villages in taking care of underprivileged children’s oral health. The campaign aims to not only raise awareness of proper dental hygiene but support healthy self-esteem in children. Your purchase makes a difference!
Did you know 60-90% of children globally suffer from cavities in their teeth, due to lack of knowledge and training in oral hygiene? Countries with widespread poverty are particularly challenged as general dental institutions often don’t reach the most vulnerable areas.
Extra’s® contribution to SOS Children’s Villages
Together with SOS Children’s Villages, Extra® runs the Oral Health Programme in Botswana to spread knowledge about good dental hygiene to 16,000 children each year.
The Programme helps strengthen dental health competence among teachers, caregivers, and other health personnel so they can pass the knowledge on to the children.
The dental health project is entirely funded by Extra® and donations made from the Chew for Change campaign includes everything such as project managers, teaching materials, and toothbrushes and toothpaste.
Behind the Chew for Change campaign
The Chew for Change campaign is back for 2024, running from 26 February – 29 April.
Since 2013, Chew for Change has helped over 364,000 children and donated €3.1 million. In 2022, the campaign launched in Ireland, expanding the success from the last decade in the Nordic countries.
During the campaign, Mars will make a minimum donation (based on Extra® units sold in the Republic of Ireland) of 40,000 Euro to SOS Children’s Villages UK. Extra® is part of the Mars family of brands. You can find out more about them here: https://www.mars.com/about
By chewing Extra®, you contribute to better dental health for more children. Every chew counts!
SOS’ Family Strengthening Programme
In addition to the collaboration on the dental health project, Extra® is an important partner to SOS Children’s Villages UK’s work on strengthening vulnerable families in Chipata, Zambia.
Here Extra® helps ensure that children do not lose parental care; those vulnerable families, who, due to poverty, illness or death, risk being split up.
SOS’ family programmes work with families who need support to take care of their children and provides family counselling, health follow-up, and support for education and income-generating work. Each family receives tailored support based on their situation and conditions.
However, the purpose is the same for everyone – to give each family better conditions for caring for the children and safeguarding their basic rights. This is how socially sustainable communities are built.
About SOS Children’s Villages
Children should get more out of life than just the basics they need for survival. They have a right to grow up in a safe and caring family environment, giving them the best chance of a stable, secure future.
SOS Children’s Villages has been supporting vulnerable children and families for more than 70 years and is currently working in over 135 countries and territories around the world. Our vision is for a world where every child has a family, a community, and a chance to grow up feeling cared for and loved.
SOS believes that poverty should never be a reason for a child to be separated from their family, so we work with families and communities across the globe to try and make sure this doesn’t happen.
We know our programmes work. How? We can trace our impact across generations – we know that the children we help go on to raise healthy and loving families, breaking the cycle of separation and abandonment. For every €1 that goes into our family strengthening programmes, €22 is poured back into society.
