Our team on site

is a specialist in orthodontics (CH) in private practice in Bad Zurzach. Since 2003, “saxer + frei zahnärzte” has been the region’s competency centre for dentistry. While specialising at the University of Bern, Dr Marcel Frei was active on the interdisciplinary caretaker team for children with cleft lips and palates and himself treated many patients of all ages. In Kyrgyzstan he uses dental hypnosis, which he practises generally as a therapist at “smile-coach.ch”, to put terrified children at their ease as well as to teach local orthodontists how to deal with their often traumatised patients in a relaxed manner. He has a grown son with his wife Yvonne, with whom he loves to travel and learn about new cultures.

is a dental hygienist with the Swiss Red Cross and office manager at “saxer + frei zahnärzte” in Bad Zurzach. She organises the team’s travel to Osh and their residence there and ensures that everything runs smoothly, both at the orthodontic clinic and during the interdisciplinary consulting hours for children with cleft lips and palates. She trains the young people in oral hygiene and teaches the local dentists about teeth cleaning and parodontal therapy. She brings Swiss dental prophylaxis, a concept renowned worldwide, to Kyrgyzstan. But Yvonne and Marcel do more than just pass on their expert know-how to Central Asian dentists for the good of the many local sufferers from cleft lips and palates: they also bring people together in order to reducing prejudice and misconception.

is a specialist in maxillofacial surgery. He runs the Cranio Facial Center in Hirslanden (cfc Hirslanden) at Hirslanden Medical Center, Aarau together with three other specialists and a specialist in anaesthesiology. Within the cfc, which offers everything from oral surgery and implantology to orthognathic surgery and complex tumour resections and reconstructions, he focuses primarily on orthognathic and orbital surgery. His work in Kyrgyzstan consists of correcting cleft-induced misalignments of the jaw and, above all, in passing on the corresponding surgical techniques to his Kyrgyz colleagues.

has been practising speech therapy in Bern for many years. Her focus in her work is orofacial dysfunction in close interaction with deformities of the lips, jaw and gums. She works in two interdisciplinary cleft lip and palate teams and participates in a clinic for the affliction in Bern, delivers expert lectures, offers coaching, and consults, accompanies and motivates afflicted children and their parents through what are sometimes long and intensive speech therapies. She has been active in the project in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, since 2011. Thanks to Dr Brigitte Winkler, she has been able to pass on her expertise as a speech therapist and her long years of experience to the students, speech therapists and caretakers at the schools and homes for children with speech defects. Marianne Campiche looks forward to every stint in Kyrgyzstan and loves the way the children and their parents show their warmth and gratitude.