About the AZB

Aktionsgemeinschaft Arzt- und Zahnarzthilfe Brasilien (AZB)

(Medical and dental assistance action group Brazil)

The “Aktionsgemeinschaft Arzt- und Zahnarzthilfe Brasilien e.V.” was founded in October 1991 by the four dentists Dr. Schoof, Dr. Wagner, Dr. Pfeffer and Dr. Schmoll in Baden Baden. The association’s goal is to provide comprehensive medical and humanitarian aid to underdeveloped areas in Brazil.

To date several hundred colleagues have been able to treat more than 500,000 patients.

Brasilan childrenThe first project began in the Jardim Vitória slum (favela) in Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso state in the midwest of Brazil. Primarily children were treated in a trailer serving as a mobile dental clinic on the grounds of a school. Because working conditions were poor and the demand was overwhelming, the association decided in 1993 to construct its own small health station in the middle of this favela. Donations from Germany helped put the plan into effect.

Over the years the ground floor treatment rooms were extended to provide accommodation for the dental teams on the second floor.

  • excursions in 4-wheel drive vehicles, with the help of a friendly Salesian order, to remote Indian reservations, where treatments were carried out at regular intervals
  • work in a jungle hospital in Vila Bela, near the Bolivian border
  • since early 1999, the organization and implementation of week-long trips to Indian reserves in the associations’ own dentomobile

DentomobilThe dentomobile is a 5-ton truck from the inventory of the former East German army (the NVA), which elaborate technology has made into an extremely hardy all-terrain vehicle well suited to Brazilian jungle conditions. The vehicle was converted into a mobile clinic in Germany, and since early 1999 has been on stand-by for missions to inaccessible regions around Salvador/Bahia. It has been the subject of broadcasts by both Brazilian television as well as the German TV stations ZDF and RTL.