You can see where the CRU dental mission has been active in Uganda with the establishment of Dentaid dental surgeries and also where pain relief clinics have been organised and staffed by volunteers using portable dental equipment. click to view clinics map
mobile dental surgery
A Fundraising Cycle for Christian Relief Uganda
By Robin Yeoman and Dan Roberts
I recently cycled 240 miles in 4 days from Dieppe to Paris and back with a great friend of mine, Dan. We wanted to do something to support the great work that is going on in Uganda and raising this money has presented us with a huge challenge. Self-funded, mapped and organized, it has been an absolute pleasure to undertake and it proves how easy it is to get out there and raise the awareness of CRU. Mukund Patel is a personal friend of mine who will be joining the teams Dental Mission in November – the money we have raised ensures people will benefit from all those saddle sores and sweaty brows!! Please follow our blog at www.2wheelygoodguys.tumblr.com to see more photos.
Please feel free to keep sponsoring – we are on £635 as we speak!!!
Dan Roberts & Robin Yeoman cycle to raise money for dental
Barbara Koffman has built up close working relationships with several of the local Ugandan dentists, one of whom, Gilbert Rwamwitani, joined a dental team and wrote a personal journal giving his impressions of his experiences. Gilbert Rwamwitani writes…‘One thing that I appreciate is that volunteers save up a lot of money and come miles to help our poor people – folk who would normally never get dental/oral attention…’
Click below to read more about Gilbert’s work and studies to influence Ugandan policy on Infant Oral Mutilation: Gilbert Rwamwitani
Gilbert being interviewed for a CRU video
James and Fiona were out in Uganda for 3 weeks in April as part of the dental mission.
They wrote: “From Jinja we would set off every weekday at 8am in a hired school bus. Our targets were surrounding villages that had been informed of our arrival in advance. There we would administer much-needed dental treatment to folk who have never had access to it. Imagine walking around for two years with toothache – this is commonplace.”
To read more click the link below -
Anne Powders writes about her experiences as part of the dental team who travelled around rural Uganda in April 2010:
“I have a real interest in working in different cultures and communities, so when I read about the dental projects and volunteer opportunities with Christian relief Uganda, I was eager to find out more, and possibly become a team member myself! This is my story… ”
Click here to read her whole report.
Putting a smile on Ugandan’s faces – community gets first ever dentist treatment
Eleven dental professionals, five from UK and six Ugandans have just completed a successful tour offering pain relief, basic dental treatment and oral hygiene education to remote areas in Uganda. ‘We had an amazing time’, reports CRU dental organiser Barbara Koffman. ‘We went out to Namagonga, a forested peninsular on the shores of Lake Victoria, which is only accessible by boat. They had never had treatment from a dentist there before. The teams were also welcomed by other communities on Buvuma Island, Lake Victoria, and at Bukanga near to Iganga in Eastern Uganda’.
Joining the team was one of CRU’s sponsored orphans, John Zaake. John was acting as interpreter and the team trained him to teach oral hygiene in local Primary schools they visit. ‘He is a natural teacher’ said Barbara and has proved very able to do this work and everybody loves him!’
John came to Mara’s Care to live when it was a residential home for orphans when he was nine years old. Now, at 20 he has successfully completed ‘A’ level. His results mean he can take a Diploma at Vocational training college, thanks to continuing sponsorship from CRU.
After two weeks of very hard work, the UK dental team were naturally frustrated by delayed flights of a week or more to England from Entebbe because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland – not to mention the backlog of patients to catch up with at their own practices! CRU offers sincerest thanks to them on behalf of all the Ugandan poor they have served.
The picture shows the dental clinic where Gilbert normally works. He recently emailed concerning a lady he helped some time back with untreated tertiary syphilis and as a result had the oral sores.
Gilbert writes: “the work you do has lasting effects, sometimes even long after you leave. That lady, who is by the way alive and fine now, had been saved by a friend who had come to Kabwohe for the September clinic gave us. This lady called one of the numbers we had put on the advert posters, she asked me to go help tell what was wrong with her friend’s mouth. This would not have been possible if we hadn’t done the Kabwohe clinic.”
donated folding dental chair
Dental volunteers travelling to remote parts of Uganda in October 2009 were able to make good use of the Dentaid folding Dental Chair provided by ladies from Tytherington Family Worship Church, Macclesfield. On previous dental trips some patients were balanced precariously on rough benches during treatment!
In September 2009 Barbara Koffman led another successful dental mission to remote villages in Uganda. Gilbert, one of the Uganda dentists on the team, commented:
“Most of the people in these areas have no dentist to visit within miles and miles, and even more of these areas had people who had no idea at all that the mouth is a place that requires regular cleaning just like other body parts. We performed procedures with materials bought and donated by our kind friends in the UK and abroad. At one of the clinics I was doing suturing on an old lady that I was sure would otherwise never have had such an expensive suture in her mouth. Sutures are a luxury here. The gloves you donate and other stuff actually make a difference in the lives of our people. I was shocked that some of the stuff we use is for single use only! I mean, a suturing forceps can be sterilized and used over and over, I still don’t understand why in the UK it’s a single use forceps!”
“Barbara and the whole dental team came to my district in Kabwohe Bushenyi and gave free oral surgeries to over 440 rural people in the two days. It was an honour to us – the place is far, so far in the west, roads are so bad, there was no telephone network for two days and therefore it was so hard to organise …”
Click here for Gilbert’s story
Some of our volunteers find interesting and exciting ways to raise money for the dental projects. Charlotte Edmunson, a volunteer due out on the March 2010 trip completely flipped out with a sky dive to raise money.
Charlotte's sponsored skydive to raise money for 2010 trip