NEED DENTAL VOLUNTEERS FOR YOUR PROJECT?
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Subject: Re: From Bill Martin bmartin429@aol.com
Got back last night! Fantastic meeting with several Rotary clubs. (July 2010\0
First note about last trip.
We took a group of 20 dental students and 3 faculty from the University of Florida College of Dentistry. We selected students that were going to be seniors this coming fall. This was a trip they had to "earn" by making the best grades and highest clinical scores. Really an incredible group. We were partnering with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. We worked in a village called Mindo and Los Bancos northwest of Quito for 2 days and then at the dental school for 3 days.
We were able to set up 10 - 12 stations and saw hundreds of patients over a 5 day period.
I just returned from Ecuador after spending the last week meeting with Rotarians. We will be going back in August. We will spend several days in a very remote area of the mountains near Ambato working on indigenous people and then working in a clinic Rotary built outside Quito for several days. I am taking only 2 US dentists and we are teaming up with 3 Ecuadorian dentists and a few dental students and I am taking 4 students.
My efforts are directed in establishing sustainable projects in Ecuador. Specifically, I am working on approaching medical, dental, literacy, clean water, microbusiness etc. Picking one or 2 areas and saying "we are here for the long run and we will continue to come back. We are going to look at this as a district project and I have talked to Rotarians in several areas of the US who are interested. For instance some clubs are interested in clean water others in literacy etc. But the important part is we are going to "adopt" one specific area not shotgun one place one year then another place the next year. You might say we are commiting for years to an area and "building relationships, changing lives" ours and theirs.
In the medical and dental realm I am interested in stragic partnerships with Dental and Medical schools in Ecuador. A trip would look like this: we pair up an Ecuadorian student with an American student and they work clinically as a team. Hopefully they both can learn a lot and form a lasting and lastly go home to their communities as professionals and become Rotarians.
The Ecuadorian Rotarians were very excited about this type of concept. We will continue to work on it in August.
If anyone in your network might be interested in future projects they would be welcome. I try to schedule a couple of fun days but we are busy and because we are involved with students we are staying in Hostals and doing things a student can afford. The reward of working with students is incredible, an amazing energy and interaction makes going on "the cheap" really worth it. Plus we are able to provide so much dentistry it is incredible. This isn't humanitarian tourism but serious work. That said people could schedule extra time for fun and I have the contacts in Ecuador that could take care of that.