 Welcome to the dental services unit prize-giving ceremony for the C.R. Think Mouthing Health Dental Comic Strip Competition. I wish I've acknowledged the presence of our Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Grensford Joseph, our Chief Nursing Officer, Ms. Kirsten Suraj, Senior Management Heads, Heads of Department, dental staff, other Ministry of Health staff, invited guests, the media, and of course our winner, Mr. Neil Osman. Welcome. Today's activity marks the culmination of last year's oral health promotion on halitosis. The dental comic strip was a creative way of engaging the youth to be aware of a condition called halitosis, which is most often called bad breath. The competition took place in the latter half of the year and was open to a wide cross-section of the youth from ages 12 to 35 years. A call for submission was made and the televised ad was placed on the media and I'm going to showcase the media ad. It's the fight halitosis dental comic strip competition. Let's see what you made of. Design a comic strip of eight panels on any one of the themes, halitosis, oral hygiene, and non-communicable diseases. Your comic strip should be 18 by 24 inches. The deadline is September 15, 2019. Your soft copy submission goes to the Millennium Heights Medical Complex Facebook page and your hard copy goes to the senior dental surgeon department of health and wellness, Waterfront Castries. You must be 12 to 35 years to enter. Electronic prizes to be won. Let's see what you've got. It's the fight halitosis dental comic strip competition. What did y'all think of that? Very interesting, very catchy and I'm sure Mr. Osmond when he comes up you'll explain what really triggered him to actually participate in this competition. There's also a PSA which was circulated and televised and here is a copy of it. Oh boy there goes Janice. I'm going to ask her out. Okay my boy. Hi Janice. I got something to ask you. Hi, sure. You can ask me anything. Um, what time is it? Ten to four. Okay thank you. Well, what did she say? She has bad breath. Oh, halitosis. What? Halitosis is also known as bad breath. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah man. Janice represents part of the 25% of people who are affected by bad breath. But where does it come from? In most cases, halitosis originates from the gums and tongue. When food particles are left in the mouth, they break down by bacteria, produces sulfur compounds, which causes bad odor in the mouth. Flossing and brushing regularly can help prevent this. In some cases, if your bad breath won't go away, it can be a warning sign of advanced gum disease, mouth infections, sinus condition, gastric reflux, diabetes, liver or kidney disease. See a doctor if your bad breath does not go away. Boy, I am too embarrassed to ask someone if I have bad breath. You can do a personal test for halitosis. It's called the wrist test. Lick the inside of your wrist and let it dry for a minute. Sniff the area. If you have halitosis, then there would be a bad odor. Thank goodness there is no bad odor. We can also get an idea of the odor people get when we speak by using dental floss in between the back teeth. This is where food particles are most likely to get caught. Smell the floss. This should give an idea of the odor others get when we speak. Wow! It is important to practice good oral hygiene, such as brushing and flossing at least twice daily after breakfast and dinner. Proper brushing will remove bacteria and food particles on teeth and at the gum line. Flossing will remove accumulated bacteria, plaque and food trapped between the teeth. Boy, you just fed me with loads of information. Wait, there's one more thing I have to let you and everyone know. Visit your dentist regularly and be sure to fight halitosis with regular brushing and flossing. This one I know for sure. This message was brought to you by the dental services of the Department of Health and Wellness in collaboration with and sponsored by PAHO and WHO. Lovely. Lovely. And I will say that we got a lot of reading reviews during the production and televisionizing of this PSA. A lot of persons said they were not very aware as to why persons had halitosis or bad breath and they were quite happy to see the nipped little trick with the wrist and it was a very good one. The whole aim of our department is to really bring forward oral health, the subject of oral health and how it impacts not only our mouth but the rest of the body and vice versa. And so our winner, Mr. Oseman, submitted a piece of work, a work of art that just went beyond our imagination both in content and in the design of the comic strip and there was no hesitation to say yes, this is it. And so I'd like to welcome and congratulate Mr. Oseman for having submitted his piece and he's all very ready to come and explain to us what his concept was behind his piece. My piece was basically of my concept was basically of the topic and I know it was fight halitosis and there was a few films but he decided to go with halitosis. I chose it because it was something that I could relate to. I'm not saying that, well we all have a slight, a slight condition of bad breath but I have encountered others who have had bad breath even in my workplace. I thought it was much easier to relate to so I chose it. What I decided to do was to explain it, explain their condition of halitosis through the artwork, through their own page of comic strip. Although I wish I could have had more maybe a second panel or more panels on that page but I decided to make it work although I did brainstorm, mid-story, boring on my own and the competition came at the time where I was in the process of trying to get better at drawing human figures, human proportion. When I came across it on Mr. Ted Sandiford's Instagram page, I thought that he just fell at the right time, he came at the right time because I had already purchased some art supplies and everyday he was practicing to get better at drawing as you can see the human proportion. So he came at the right time and it allowed me to put that that I was practicing into work. I did lose a lot of reference so most of it came out of my imagination. I used certain apps that could allow me to manipulate a certain figure and put it into different postures. Also the postures of the superhero and the kits up there was done by the app and I just redrew it and I put it into the software. I used a 2p illustrator and it was a lot of mostly sleepless nights but it was nice so I went to bed really late because I woke up at night shift so I don't have much time during the day so when I came home every night I would try to do at least a few, at least do as much as I could and I tried my best to explain and do at least entertain the topic of other two scenes throughout the page. I tried to do my best to make it also have a bit of sense of humor with the capturing of the monster and for the monster or the young boy turned to a monster or some type of Godzilla creature. I just wanted to show how I exaggerate how someone you may experience having bad breath or if you have bad breath how it how people perceive you I just try to exaggerate that because it can well put you off or make people run if you have a really bad case or bad breath. So that's why I tried to portray that in my piece showing the young man. Well I did have like if I have more space I did have like origination of the situation of the young man I wanted to depict how he kept waking up every morning and having breakfast and kept going to school without brushing and his mother used to always tell him while having breakfast that to make sure he brushes his teeth before he goes to school. I wanted to depict that but I just started since we had a limitation in the panels I just tried to cut scenes as much as possible so I started doing in the ear mouth showing you the cause or one of the causes of bad breath or other tussis which are the food particles left behind and turning into surf and so on and that that was taking place so for a long period of time and this one day came to school greeting his friends as usual and uh some of the uh some of the uh gyms or particles left behind which triggered his bad breath finally uh decided to transform him and we transform him slowly into a aletosaurus I like calling him um and that that changed him he had like no control over himself and it caused him to become a huge kind of dinosaur but he loved master and at the time he was at school and he just went on a roaring talk and on his lunch break was uh dento which is the dentist he was on his um lunch break when he passed by a drive by a school and he was elated by the monster and sadly he had to he could not resist so he had to um go into his superhero mode and and that short is lunch hour to um deal with their situation and he did deal with it using some of I could say the real cause the real ways to deal with um aletosaurus which is brushing um and flossing so luckily he had his um tools with him he had a he had a uh lasso which was made out of minty uh floss and he had a toothpaste gun so he used that to create effect to um deal with the condition of the young man and at the end you can see um explain it to him much better his condition for as I said before he had no he had no idea of what was happening so um then to the dentist um explain to him what had happened and informed him as to what should be done to uh prevent his condition so basically my piece and I tried to uh as much as possible but do it with a sense of humor and as well be more to be form of um those who I see thank you very much but I will try to go through the comic strip let's see as you can tell from from the picture that we saw it started in the mouth as he explained and he said it says meanwhile in the dungeons of the mouth and we have the bacteria speaking right now and it says well I go just chill out there still another one says according to my calculations we have nine minutes and 59 seconds until the bacterias arrive and it's party on guys time baby yes boys we're soon breaking out trouble when we bust out and then now he goes to the school what's the vibe all the students start running away from him oh my goodness vj you really need a neural checkup for weeks now vj has had that bad odor now that just got worse wow boy oh god so vj didn't you brush your teeth this morning bro then he converts into a roaring dinosaur why is everyone running what in the world is happening to me and then you have the dentist who's on his lunch break hearing the roar from the school whoa what's happening over there he says oh man not again now another Harley to saw us on the loose so he pulls out his shirt opens it like a superman miss carol and he calls his office miss carol can you let my first patient know that I'll be running late this morning because it's hero time and she says no problem but so there he is all in the sky the dentist stop right there bad breath monster it's time for your check up and the monster says you dare step up to me boy you must be a mad fella and so the battle begins and they start fighting over and the dentist says your terrorizing days are over Harley to saw us now that you're all tied up I shall quickly bring your reign of terror to an end with the help of my minty floss lasso and my reliable toothpaste gun as the little sorrow says what is this thing and tie me why it's so minty and fresh no and then he reports back to a normal person what happened to me why do I have this rope around me and why my new uniform like that hey my mother going to beat me and the dentist says it's all right buddy your bad case of halitosis which is a technical term for bad breath is what caused you to turn into halitosaurus a huge green monster triggered by food particles lingering in your mouth after eating they get broken down by bacteria creating sulfur compounds which eventually leads to bad breath and to becoming a bad breath monster but why didn't my friends or classmates tell me before I guess they feared you would react with not many people feel comfortable telling someone they suspect to having halitosis or suffer from poor hygiene oh I see thanks for everything then too don't mention it buddy just remember to brush and floss your teeth regularly and drink plenty of water throughout the day and remember cleanliness is godliness a job well done and I'm sure your mind went further than where I was right now and this is one of the main reasons why we had no hesitation in deeming mr. osman as the winner of the competition and so with no further ado we are going to present him with his long-awaited prize prizes of a kindle fire a fitbit and a solar power battery charging bag can you please come on this presentation is going to be done by Mrs. Debbie Paul right i'm comic i'm honored to present this prize for me the dental strip come dental comic strip competition to you mr. osman