The Dentaid Trip
The Story behind an amazing experience.
During my, many, years in dentistry, I have always wanted to be involved in a charity trip I had investigated three charity options, however, Dentaid had caught my attention on several occasions, I nearly signed up a few times for Cambodia trips, but the time was never right, and I would have preferred to not go alone.
Fast forward to one fateful afternoon mid-2015, in One Eighty Dental (one of the fabulous clinics I provided Hygiene sessions in for several years) chatting, with my then One Eighty Dental ‘Work Wife’ aka ‘Laureen’, (background info - the 2 of us were notorious for convincing each other into anything and in a heartbeat – I miss my weekly fix of her like crazy!) among the 101 topics we covered on our once weekly session together, I happened to mention always wanting to do a Dentaid trip to feel like I was giving something back, using my qualifications for something with a ‘greater good’.
Within about 30 minutes of me mentioning it, Laureen had googled it, read out the terms, downloaded the forms and we both signed up to Dentaid! I needed it to be school holidays, so July gave us Uganda, the application form and sponsorship forms were completed before the next patient arrived. We started discussing how to fundraise for our trip as it was about £2,300 each. THEN a few hours later we realised we had to tell our significant others – yep – nothing like a quick Jacqui & Laureen decision!
Dentaid was one of the best decisions we have made, and I know Laureen would agree. In the first fortnight or so after we returned, we were a bit shell-shocked to be honest, we didn’t know how to answer questions about the trip, we both regularly repeated “it was really good would definitely advise people to do it, don’t know if we would go again though!” Whereas now today both of us would go back in a heartbeat!
Perhaps the Ohh! Family might venture to Uganda one day as part of a team - watch this space!
Fundraising
The hardest part was raising funds – no one ever tells you this, almost every time we mentioned we were fundraising for charity so was the person donating, so it was £1 in £1 out in a lot of cases! Add to that constantly asking for money which was hard. We hosted a quiz night, a Halloween party, my youngest daughter dressed me for work, Laureen’s partner David was sponsored to shave off his beard – raising a whopping £600 (which took place at the end of the licensed Halloween party in the middle of the dance floor, and in hindsight, not the best time to be shaving off a great big bushy beard), we held raffles and the usual social media pleas of please help us in this cause. In the end we made it to our target with only a couple of weeks to our deadline!
Donations
The suitcases you see us with in the photo are full of donations, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental equipment, and materials, even including the suitcases themselves which were being donated – Laureen, and I had small backpacks as we had to travel constantly on the trip moving from place to place to remote sites, and a strict packing list as we had to have shoulders and ankles covered for cultural reasons and had to prepare for very basic living conditions and the Ugandan climate and beasties.
Vaccinations, fundraising, all dental donations gathered, and packing done, in July 2016 off we went!
A picture is worth a thousand words!
The photos in the gallery will tell a better tale than I can.
The Uganda Trip
In short, we became part of a Fabulous volunteer team of 10 individuals from all different parts of the UK - meeting briefly in Dubai airport for the first time & for a quick change of flight out to Uganda. Dentaid supported 5 Ugandan Dentists, who were keen to learn more and required training and funding to serve these communities that had no one else looking after their care, and that took us to 15 & then we had Stevie - who kept us safe, ‘safety, safety, safety’ was his mantra at the end of every team huddle, and he provided our transportation.
In our fortnight in Uganda, and our amalgamated team of 16 in our wee bus, we visited orphanages, a prison, rural communities, remote islands, and schools. We treated hundreds of people - all whilst having no electricity or running water.
The welcome the team received was always amazing, at every place they were so happy to see us, the people we treated had very little, yet they presented themselves with such a positive manner, and were so grateful to be receiving care.
(My daughters got a bit of a hard time from me on my return home “you don’t know how lucky you are!” was a regular phrase)
A lot of our patients had never seen ‘white people’ and the children would hold our hands and touch our arms turning them from front to back to see if we were white both sides, as we passed through rural villages and back roads to our setting for the day – they would point and shout out their word for alerting the others that the white people had arrived - MZUNGU’S – I don’t believe the true translation is very flattering and is maybe more relatable to ‘aliens’ or some say ‘spirits’ (I would have to seek clarification on that) but it was not offensive and only meant in descriptive terms.
Many of our patients traveled many miles and some over a couple of days, walking, to get to us to receive treatment. Word would spread that we were arriving, and people would come from everywhere!
Some of what we saw was upsetting, and in some places where there was access to sugar cane the decay of the teeth was awfully bad. There would be little to eat, in most cases only one meal a day, and therefore if there was access to sugar cane then that would be consumed during the day.
One orphanage was deeply upset when we discussed this as they felt they had made the teeth, and therefore the children, sick! whilst trying to do something positive for the kids. Thankfully with Education we were able to advise on how to still give sugar cane but allow time for the tooth to recover, and we were able to repair hundreds of teeth in fact probably thousands of teeth in the hundreds of patients over the 2 weeks and extract those teeth that could not be saved,
Freeing hundreds of people within that one fortnight from dental pain and infection.
I love a quote as you may have come to realise or soon will! One of my longstanding favourites, and possibly my mantra…
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!
More than the treatments we carried out, and longer lasting than the fortnight, was that we educated on a massive level, our Ugandan Dentists, the Pastors, the Orphanages, The schools & ourselves - I know for a fact we all came back a little different, a little better! I myself am very grateful for the experience.
Mwesigwa Boaz Jardel (Boaz)
One of the Ugandan dentists who formed part of the Dentaid team i was so fortunate to be part of. Boaz came from a very poor family and struggled to become a public health dentist in his great desire to carry healthcare to the poor and underprivileged communities of Uganda.
Boaz had open heart surgery in 2017 he was born with a congenital heart defect and in 2017 surgery became urgent; with no funds to pay for surgery all those who have known him, and what he gives to the underprivileged communities, managed to raise the funds required, 28,800,000 Uganda shillings/£5,934 pound sterling.
Boaz has suffered many loses of close family however this is how you will always find him with a smile when he greats you and when he is providing urgent and necessary dental care.
I have kept in touch with Boaz, since my return from Uganda, and he is always asking about Ohh! and how we are progressing he tells me he thinks we are very inspiring and is Praying for our success.
We at Ohh! think he is very inspiring and hope for his every success.
Dentaid is a wonderful charity
If you would like to find out more about them or to support them in some way, perhaps by raising awareness, visit www.dentaid.org
My parting note to you the reader is I will never take having a toilet for granted ever again! There is a photo of an exceptionally clean ‘squat toilet’, one of the better ones, in amongst the pics and with that I shall sign off! (before i tell my ‘intestinal worms’ story)
Stay Fabulous out there, Jacqui x
