"When I was a child at school, I was taught to brush my teeth three times every day. I am old now, and I admit sometimes I brushed my teeth and sometimes I didn’t brush my teeth.  

When I didn’t for one week, it affected my teeth. It spoiled many of my teeth.  

I am old now, and some of my teeth have fallen out because I stopped brushing,” says Emily John, a preschool teacher at Aim Yee Kindy School in Mele Maat, Vanuatu.  

Today, Emily uses her own experience of tooth loss to teach her students to properly brush their teeth with fluoride toothpaste and develop lifelong healthy habits, such as eating a healthy diet.   

Aim Yee Kindy School is one of more than 30 preschools and schools in Vanuatu that have implemented the “Gudfala Tut Skul” or “Healthy Tooth School” programme aimed at reducing the high burden of tooth decay and dental caries in children throughout the country. 

“Good habits start here,” says Emily. “They take those habits home and parents learn from their children.”