INDIAN HILL, Ohio -- What started as a high school project is now a nonprofit that reaches to China and Cambodia.
Diana Yue, a Indian Hill High School junior, wants to bring BEST, Better Education for Stronger Teeth, to Africa by the end of the year.
Yue created BEST in 2017 in an effort to promote oral health in rural parts of the world. She launched the program in China because her parents grew up in a rural village there.
“My father once told me when he was a 15-year-old coal miner in rural China, his coworkers smoked with handmade cigarettes stuck together by the thick plaque in their teeth,” Yue said.
Procter & Gamble supports the nonprofit. Yue prepares class materials, recruits volunteers, and does fundraising for oral hygiene, and she has worked with other organizations to produce a dental tablet that can be used to clean teeth without water.
BEST has served more than 7,000 children across 40 schools in the United States, Cambodia and China.
