Dr Sharon Rankin set up the Sunnymede Trust in 1989 when she returned from voluntary work in Zambia. The Trust recruited volunteer dentists to visit rural communities in Africa, offer treatments and help to train local health workers. Treatments usually involved the immediate relief of pain, most commonly through tooth extraction.

As the Trust continued to provide this ‘service’, they wanted to make a greater contribution towards a sustained improvement in oral health.  This was achieved by creating a new learning & educational resource and in 2007, they produced the Teeth Relief Oral Health Training Manual. Now when dentists leave, they don’t take all the knowledge away with them.