HRH Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Advisor to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Prince of Makkah, has praised the partnership of Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), represented by the College of Dentistry for community initiative, with the Department of Education in Makkah Region; under the title of “Makkah Smile” through which a field survey of cavity and gum diseases at primary schools in Makkah is being conducted. He emphasized on sending the results of this partnership to the province emirate.

Also, HRH Prince Abdullah bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, Acting Prince of Makkah, lauded the report of the first visit paid by the mobile dental clinics team along with Makkah Department of Education; expressing thanks and appreciation to Dr. Bakri bin Matouq Assass, UQU President, for the valuable efforts and wishing him much success.

Dr. Bakri praised the support of the wise leadership - May God bless it. Such support contributed to providing educational and research environment according to the highest standards and specifications. He also praised this nice gesture made by HRH Prince Khaled Al Faisal and HRH Prince Abdullah bin Bandar bin Abdelaziz, which would motivate the devotion and sincerity to serve this scientific entity at UQU.

UQU President said that the partnership targets 3000 male and female students during this academic year; pointing out that the students suffering from tooth decay will be referred for treatment at the Educational Dental Hospital at the university campus in Al-Abideyah. Moreover, there will be a mechanism with the school to follow up the students’ treatment to reach complete healing, adding that there will be fluoride sessions for children's teeth to protect them from dental caries.

For his part, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Khutani, dean of the College of Dentistry, said that the aim of this partnership “Makkah Smile” is to spread the preventive medical awareness on teeth among   among school male and female students, educate them how to clean their teeth, the importance of teeth to maintain the human health and digestive system to defend the body against diseases. It also aims to carry out medical examinations on school students to make statistics on the percentage of decay and oral diseases within the school community, in addition to analyzing the results of the statistics to create a database on decay rates among children of different ages in Makkah.

He added that there are 6 field visits paid to many primary schools that examined about 600 students. On the other hand, he lauded the directives of UQU president that contributed to the implementation of this partnership in a way that suits the status of UQU. He also appreciated the efforts of the college staff participating in this initiative stemmed from the college’s vision and mission. Finally, the dean thanked and appreciated the Department of Education in Makkah for its cooperation with the mobile clinics team.