Written by Dr. Cristian Dunker, BDSc, MBA
This December I am heading back to Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa, and I will be away until mid-January. It is a trip I have been looking forward to for a long time, because this time I am taking my son, and I am going to help open dental services in a hospital built for the local community. And I am hoping a part of ArtSmiles will travel with me.
We have the cabinets. Now we need to get them there, and you can help: donate to our GoFundMe.
Where It Started: Projeto Jemberem, 2013
Over the 2012–2013 holidays I travelled to Guinea-Bissau with a team of 23 volunteers. Instead of spending Christmas and New Year at home, we spent them supporting a missionary project in the south of the country, known to us as Projeto Jemberem.
The team split its time across six areas:
Dental care – check-ups, treatment and oral hygiene education, often with a torch for a light and a borrowed chair for a dental chair.
Medical care – looking after people who otherwise had very limited access to a doctor.
Construction – helping to build facilities for the mission, brick by brick.
Education – working with children in the local schools.
Clean water – digging wells in the community, and sending well-drilling machinery so more wells could be dug after we left.
Village clean-up – organising the village’s first ever rubbish collection, side by side with the local children.
 Checking a student’s teeth in 2013, with a torch for light. |  Drilling a well for clean water, watched by the village children. |
 The village’s first clean-up day, with the children leading the way. |  A break on the building site with our team and local young people. |
It was basic and unforgettable. Treating patients without a dental chair, an X-ray or reliable power changes the way you think about dentistry, and about how much a simple, pain-free visit can mean to someone.
One of my favourite days was the clean-up. For the first time, the village had its rubbish collected, and the children threw themselves into it, gathering waste from around the village and passing it up to us on the truck. It was hard work, and it was joyful.
Clean water was just as important. We dug wells with the community, and the well-drilling machinery we sent stayed behind so the work could carry on long after our team went home.
A Friendship That Kept Going
The missionary family who run the project became close friends, and we stayed connected long after the team flew home. Over the years we helped them build a website, AGIR, so supporters around the world can follow the work and help fund it.
Today the mission runs schools that educate more than 1,000 children, supports churches across the Tombali district, provides healthcare and stands up for vulnerable people. It has also built a hospital for the community.
An evening with the community during our 2013 visit.
Why I Keep Going Back
People sometimes ask why a dentist from the Gold Coast would spend his holidays in a village in West Africa. The honest answer is my faith. I love Jesus, and I believe that love is meant to be shared, especially with those who need it most. This is what I try everyday here as well, with our Blessing Program and with every patient we see.
For me, faith is not just something I talk about. It is something to put into practice: relieving someone's pain, teaching a person to look after their teeth, helping to build a place where a community can be cared for. Dentistry is the gift I have been given, and Guinea-Bissau is one of the places where I can give it back.
December 2026: Opening Dental Services at the Hospital
The reason for this trip is simple: the hospital is ready to offer dental care, and I have been invited to help inaugurate the dental service. For many people in the region, it will be the first time a dentist is available close to home.
The hospital today, built with help from people around the world.
This is the hospital. It is simple by Australian standards, but it was built with the help of people from around the world who gave so that this community could have a place to be cared for. Every wall, door and sheet of roofing is someone's generosity turned into something real.
In this short video, Pastor Américo Paulino shows how the hospital is coming along:
I will be in Guinea-Bissau from December and back in the clinic in mid-January.
Our Cabinets Are Going With It
ArtSmiles is relocating to a new home, and new cabinetry is being built for the new practice. Rather than throwing out the cabinets from our current clinic, we are donating all of them to the hospital so they can be used to set up its dental rooms.
Good cabinetry is something we take for granted in an Australian dental clinic. In a hospital in rural West Africa, it means instruments and materials that are organised, protected and easy to reach, clean work surfaces, and a surgery that runs properly. Our cabinets will help the team work in an organised way and improve the quality of care they can give every patient who walks through those doors.
Can You Help Us Ship a 20-Foot Container?
Here is where we need help. To get the cabinets to Guinea-Bissau, we need to send a 20-foot shipping container, and we are looking for people and businesses who can help with:
sponsoring or contributing to the cost of the container and freight
freight forwarding or shipping expertise for West Africa
packing, transport to port, or customs and export paperwork
other useful equipment or supplies that could share the container space
If you or your business can help, or you know someone who might, please get in touch with us or call the clinic. Every bit of help gets these cabinets one step closer to a working rural hospital.
You can also learn more about the mission, or support it directly, at agir.africa.
I will share updates and photos from the hospital when I am back in January. Thank you to our patients and our team for making this possible.
Dr. Cristian Dunker
ArtSmiles, Gold Coast