PILOT
Mobilizing Children’s Oral Health: Social Enterprise & Blended Finance
SOS Children Villages Ecuador and Solidarity Dental Helth
About
Oral health is paramount to overall health and wellbeing.
Yet inequities in oral health pose a major global public health burden affecting 3.9 billion worldwide. Access and utilization of dental care is the most common unmet health need in children.
2 year proposal for improving ‘access to’ and ‘utilization of’ dental care: (1) to mobilize dental care to 2,380 SOS Children’s Villages’ family beneficiaries in Ecuador through social enterprise Novulis, with community outreach programs to raise awareness and oral health literacy, while creating local alliances for long-term sustainability; (2) expand SOS Family Strengthening Programs; (3) launch the first ever Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) certification for the US dental industry, Solidarity Dental, where certified businesses contribute 1% of revenue to support underserved patients in Ecuador; (4) build the foundation of an innovative blended finance investment from SOS and other partners to Novulis to scale oral health impact throughout Ecuador and later the rest of the Americas.
This partnership merges Novulis’ mission to provide dental care and education to the underserved and SOS’s mission to keep families together, provide alternative care when needed, support young people on their path to independence, and advocate for the rights of children.
Challenge
WHO Call to Action for Global Oral Health & $4.2T Gap to Reach 2030 SDGs
This grant responds to two major calls to action: I. Seventy-fourth World Health Assembly (WHA 74.5), landmark resolution on oral health, which calls for a paradigm shift in oral health policy planning, placing oral health at the center of the global health agenda and shifting the conventional model of restorative dentistry toward a promotive and preventive model within families, schools, and workplaces. II. According to the OECD, the annual funding gap to reach the 2030 SDGs has mushroomed from $2.5 trillion to $4.2 trillion. In 2015, UN member countries reached a consensus on the importance of deploying public funds to attract private investment capital through a new structure of financing: blended finance.
Children who are Victims of Abuse & Living in Poverty face the Greatest Oral Health Burden
Oral diseases are common, access to care is not. In Latin America, 3 out of 4 people, affected by social and structural determinants of health, lack access to quality dental care and as a result have deficient oral and general health. Children are particularly disadvantaged. Dental decay is the most common chronic disease of childhood affecting 60% of children. Children living in poverty have a 5 times higher rate of dental decay, acute traumatic injuries of the oral cavity, negatively impacted periodontal status, orofacial trauma when compared to other children, according to The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD). Children with untreated dental diseases experience adverse outcomes impacting their overall health and quality of life extending into adulthood. Children, because they are dependent upon a caregiver for dental care appointments, daily oral hygiene, and nutritional health, are particularly vulnerable.
Violence, child abuse and neglect are identified as high-risk factors for poor oral health
Status and negative oral health behavior. According to Observatorio Social del Ecuador data, 40% of children are victims of domestic violence and 60% are victims of sexual violence. Clinical reports state there’s a 35-45% increase in dental health problems amongst children who are victims of abuse while living in poverty. Oral health of young children is a complex, multidimensional matrix in which multiple barriers occur simultaneously. Investing in a child’s oral health creates a tremendous economic benefit to that child, their family and community.
Objectives
What is the main objective of the project?
(1) Novulis – Mobilizing Dental Care & Education
To relieve this burden, Novulis will provide high-quality, mobile and portable on-site, integral dental care and education to 2,380 of SOS Ecuador’s children and their parent beneficiaries in six SOS communities in Ecuador during two site visits over two years. Each patient will receive on average 4 appointments with a total of 200 minutes of dental care and 13 treatments, with a goal of reducing the majority of patients’ oral diseases through preventative, restorative, and holistic treatment plans, prioritizing patients with the greatest clinical needs. Novulis will provide educational workshops during each site visit, personalized hygiene instruction, oral health brochures and in some instances partner non-profit, Humanitarian Clowns, will provide positive experiences for children to dentistry through fun and engaging activities. SOS Ecuador will coordinate the communication, implementation and execution of the dental outreach with Novulis, while conducting their Family Strengthening Program (FSP), addressing the complex relationship between oral health & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
2. SOS Family Strengthening Program (FSP)
Through the FSP, SOS Ecuador aims to increase family strength and resilience in the six SOS communities across Ecuador where children and adolescents live in situations of violence, negligence, and temporary abandonment. Psychologists and social workers will work with families, focusing on mental health, parental skills and family accompaniment for at-risk children, with an added lens of oral and general health. This integrated program of mental and oral health care is an innovative community approach to reaching even the most at-risk members of the community, while providing patient centered care in a safe environment. SOS Ecuador & Novulis will collaborate with local governments and private businesses to increase the breadth of impact and bolster sustainability of the project after the financing horizon of this grant.
This integrated community-based oral health and family strengthening action plan represents a paradigm shift in community development, and responds directly to the WHO’s call to action.
(3) Launch the US Pilot of the Solidarity Dental Certification
Sol·i·dar·i·ty: “Emphasizes the interdependence between individuals in a society, which allows them to feel that they can enhance the lives of others.” The Solidarity Dental certification represents a paradigm shift towards reducing the burden of global oral diseases and breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and poor overall health. The aim of this certification is to create an ecosystem of solidarity to support underserved patients’ oral health. Certified businesses: (1) clinics, (2) distributors, (3) insurance companies, (4) manufacturers, (5) dental schools, will donate 1% of their revenue through financial and in-kind sponsorship for oral care to underserved patients in Ecuador and later other countries in Latin America. This economic solidarity will directly benefit SOS beneficiaries from this grant, other marginalized communities through partnerships, and Novulis’ existing patient base of 21,000 and future patients, consisting of underserved indigenous, rural, peri-urban, factory and farm workers. Additionally, the Solidarity Dental Foundation will provide certified US dental clinics an opportunity for their patients to donate directly to those same SOS beneficiaries and other underserved patients for financing their continuum of care after this 2 year grant expires through a digital patient storytelling Point-of-Sale (POS) platform. The Applied Cooperation Team located at MIT will conduct a pilot study of the impact of becoming Solidarity Dental certified and explore what factors motivate solidarity patients to donate through the POS platform. The outcome of the study will be used for a nationwide launch of the certification.
This integrated community-based oral health and family strengthening action plan represents a paradigm shift in community development, and responds directly to the WHO’s call to action.
(4) The Foundation of an Innovative Blended Finance Investment. Blended Finance is the use of catalytic capital from public or philanthropic sources to increase private sector investment in sustainable development. In March, 2020, Novulis received the Social Impact Incentives (SIINC) blended finance funding instrument, which rewards high-impact enterprises with premium payments for achieving social impact while also raising private investment capital. The IDB Lab financed $280,000 for the SIINC fund, while Novulis was required to raise $1M in investment capital. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Novulis successfully raised investment from one of the largest and most ethically aligned corporate holdings in Ecuador, Grupo Futuro. This is the first time that a large corporate holding in Ecuador has invested in a public health social enterprise like Novulis.
Experiment summary:
In September of 2021, Novulis Founder & CEO, Greg Krupa, was invited as guest lecturer to the Initiative for Blended Finance in Zurich, Switzerland, where he met David Katzlinger, Head of Institutional Partnership Development of SOS International. Since then, Novulis and SOS have been working closely to form this groundbreaking partnership. SOS Ecuador identified oral health as a critical unmet need for its user base. This also represents an innovative growth opportunity for SOS Ecuador.
This grant is the first step towards future blended finance investment rounds where SOS International will invest in Novulis. Each round of investment will have different levels of investment, starting with technical assistance grant making, later first loss capital investment, mezzanine investment, and senior investment. Key stakeholders, such as foundations and charities, development agencies, development banks and finance institutions, impact investors, and private investors, will be engaged for investment to achieve scalable global health outcomes otherwise not possible via traditional development mechanisms. This will mark SOS’s first investment in a social enterprise in its 73 year history. This represents a new path forward to reach the 2030 SDG goals. Together, SOS, Novulis, and the Solidarity Dental Foundation, with many other partners, are building one of the most groundbreaking development ecosystems to redirect millions of dollars towards improving global oral health and childhood development. This blended finance partnership has the potential to create millions of happier, healthier and more secure families.
SDGs: (1) No Poverty (3) Good Health and Well-Being (5) Gender Equality, (9) Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure (10) Reduced Inequalities (17) Partnerships for the Goal
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