Joan Hornett, retired dentist and much valued dental volunteer with CRU has experienced two trips to Uganda with Barbara Koffman’s teams.
She used the CRU mobile dental clinic’s instruments as inspiration for this composition for her Fine Arts degree.
Good luck with the course Joan and we look forward to having you on board for another dental mission.
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
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.
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!
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
In 2008 Barbara Koffman led 2 groups of dental volunteers in February and September. Their main purpose was to carry out basic dentistry in a number of temporary clinics at various locations.
Extract from Barbara’s diary for September 9th
“For many of the team it is their first time in Uganda. To arrive at the village and to be greeted with large crowds can be a bit daunting. This team take it all in their stride and quickly we are all off loading the equipment and setting up our clinic. We have 3 sections. Triage, which acts as a filter system, some people just come to look at the Muzungu, the actual clinic where all the procedures will take place, and post op where people will sit and rest after their extraction. We are very careful to make sure everyone is feeling well before we send them off on their way. Some people will have walked many miles to have this dental treatment. As soon as the first patient has been screened then we can begin. Terry and his family have been with us on these dental clinics now for the past 4 times so they know their roles. Crowd control is a big issue. Terry has a very good system and the flow of human traffic is under control. Joseph the Ugandan is working next to Nick and Mark so that if there are any clinical issues he can get help. Very quickly it becomes obvious that the UK equipment is so alien to him that he is misusing it. This is one of the main reasons my UK contact asked if he could join our team. He is very receptive to further training. Mark and Nick are very good communicators, so Joseph will gain a great deal from this session. As usual the number of people waiting is somewhat over whelming, but I reassure my team that we can only do what we can do. Inevitably there will be people that we have to turn away. As part of our remit this time we are “Road Testing“2 folding dental chairs that Dentaid have designed. Sadly one of them was damaged in transit but it is still usable. So the 3 dentists are being very critical as to how the design can be modified for better use in Uganda. We work until around 1p.m. when we are told that lunch is ready. We are going to eat local food which will be rice, and beans and cabbage with a few pieces of meat. The cost of this meal is taken from the donated monies in the dental fund. In order to facilitate one of these trips there needs to be around £2,000. Cost for interpreters, transport, dental drugs, sundries, Ugandan clinicians, and fuel all these go together to make one of these trips possible. After lunch we start work again…”
February
Barbara commented, “This was a very successful trip measured by the amount of patients treated and there being no clinical traumas or problems, and no post operative traumas. There was a follow up visit to the clinics one week later and all the reports were good. All team members interacted well both with UK and Ugandan staff. It is hoped that a long term working relationship will be established in this way. Allocated funding was sufficient to facilitate the trip, which was approximately £2,000. This covered the cost of transport, drugs, interpreters, expenses for Ugandan qualified staff, food for the whole team, and laundry. The people of Uganda gave their thanks to the UK volunteers for providing this much needed outreach mission.”
Hygenist Shirley’s account of a helping at a clinic:
“Tuesday 19th Feb The day started earlyish and at 0800 we were busy loading all the dental supplies on to our minibus. First stop was Terry’s house where we immediately unpacked our bus so that we could put it all on to a different one. Terry, a pastor from the USA, gave us a quick briefing and then we were off. I was a little bit surprised at how many people were involved – drivers, interpreters, and two Ugandan public health workers who are able to take teeth out. That was in addition to us and the Nester family. The journey to Bulega took about an hour along several dirt roads and we finally set up clinic at a village school. There was, of course, no running water or any of the other niceties associated with a UK practise. We had 150 customers which we somehow or another managed to get through by 1700. I was in post op with Natalie and our interpreter was Richard. We generally looked after everyone who had had an extraction, gave them a dose of antibiotics and painkillers, handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and kept Richard busy interpreting post extraction instructions.”
August 2007 saw a new party of dental volunteers carrying out basic dentistry in a number of temporary clinics at various locations.
Barbara’s Dental Diary Aug07
Uganda, Africa by Katie
Jambo Muzungo ! – the call that rang out wherever we went; combined with frantically waving and jumping children. There were ten of us altogether, a mixture of dentists, hygienists and nurses all working with Christian Relief Uganda. As a student dentist, this was a great opportunity to combine experiencing another culture with learning new skills.
We drove into outlying areas of Uganda, where bazungos (white people) are rarely seen, along kilometres of red, bumpy, dusty roads. On arrival we set up dental clinics, extracted teeth educated on oral hygiene and handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste.
There was a lot of work to do at a three-day clinic near a sugar cane plantation. Chewing chunks of sugar cane forms part of their diet, leading to decayed front teeth. However, none of us refused the chance to try some when offered a piece one lunchtime!
In the UK, parents often face the problem of what to do with children when at the dentist. We found the answer to this problem one day when a lady continued to breastfeed her baby throughout her extraction.
Driving also takes on a new slant in Uganda, as we discovered on a drive in the city of Kampala. Instead of giving way to the right on a roundabout, the fastest driver gets the right of way. This led to some interesting driving experiences.
Approaching one of our dental clinic sites (via boat), we were told, Try and stay close to the clinic and don’t wander off as tribes in this area still practice cannibalism. This was no joke. We were then carried off the boat by local men to avoid us getting wet feet. Slightly unnerving, having just learnt of the local customs!
A few days of our trip were spent living on Bavuma Island, which is located in Lake Victoria. No electricity means evening entertainment is sparse – however, one night we found ourselves learning traditional Ugandan dancing under the instruction of several local women. This is harder than it looks with the movement all in the hips which have to be accentuated with a scarf. When asked to perform a typical English dance in return we all immediately broke into Saturday night moves and the Macarena!
The last few days of the trip were spent on safari in north Uganda,
Here is an extract from my diary:
At present I am sitting on stilted decking, in an armchair, outside our canvas tent. In front of me there are a few trees and bushes leading down to the Nile. On the opposite bank is the safari park, Murchison Falls, where last night I could see hippos and water buffalo. The storm has just broken so there is rain dripping through the trees around me, with thunder rolling in the background adding to the croak of bullfrogs and the hiss of crickets. Every now again a flash of lightning illuminates my page. It’s dusk.
Uganda, Africa was for me an indescribable experience. On more than one occasion during my trip, I was told that I would never know or realise the impact of the dental work we had done on peoples lives. But I think that I may never realise the impact that Uganda has had on my life. All I know is that I learnt a huge amount, have wonderful memories of welcoming smiles and that I enjoyed every minute.