The education program has undergone significant changes during the thirteen-year history of Sonrisas. Initially the focus was on oral health and prevention of oral illnesses.   

In 1997, with the support of Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC), a new and progressive educational project was begun, designed to educate and empower family members so that Dominican people, especially the children, may grow strong and live productively.  The educational topics include important health and social issues like

• family planning,
• nutrition,
• general health,
• abuse prevention,
• personal hygiene,
• and disease prevention among others.

Sonrisas and CFTC are developing plans to further expand the educational program in 2001 to focus on knowledge application.

In 1999 and 2000, nearly 384,846 people participated in the "Sonrisas" educational program in the dental offices and through the mobile clinics. Of this number, 229,958 were children and 154,888 were adults. Once again, these numbers represent an increase over previous years for the same reason the dental treatments increased. Also, the expansion of the educational department to include trained community educators has greatly increased the educational outreach.

In 1999 and 2000, a total of 509,154 patients were treated and educated through our various services.This is nearly double the total for 1990-1998; essentially the Foundation nearly doubled its total outreach in two years.Of the 1999-2000 total, 58% (295,948) of the beneficiaries were children and 42% (213,206) were adults.