The reach of the Rotary Club goes all around the world and back to the valley.
This was evident on Saturday, September 26 when dentists and practitioners from Uganda made their way through the valley. The connections go back years, as the contingent was hosted by a former Three Hills dentist Dr. Drew Cahoon.
“I was in Three Hills from 1980 to 1989,” he tells The Mail.
After an automobile accident, he left the industry and rebooted his practice in Raymond Alberta.
Today he is only working in Africa. He heads overseas twice a year to Uganda and Rwanda.
His mission began as doing work in a home for handicapped children in Uganda. The Minister of Health heard of this project, and took him to meet the dean of the College Health and Wellness. This began a new project to rebuilding an archaic dental school.
“It had been built in 1970 by the government of Denmark. There were 40 dental chairs donated in 1968 and by 2005 only five worked. It was a real disaster. They asked what could we do. I said, “let’s dream.”
They dreamed big, and had 20 new chairs installed and were able to make 15 useable chairs out of the old set. They also brought in x-ray and sterilization equipment. In all it was a $2.1 million project to rebuild the school.
The next important component helping the people of Uganda was to work on training the practitioners.
He explains that the participants on this journey are dentists and public health dental officers from 13 regional referral hospitals. The services at these hospitals are free, and often their practice is to extract teeth.
“As Rotarians, we didn’t want to be known for extracting teeth, we want to be known for restoring teeth as well,” he said.
This began another project where they brought in dental chairs donated and purchased from the University of Alberta. Now each clinic has two chairs, and the dental school received nine.
They began training the dentists and practitioners in Uganda on oral hygiene and restorative dentistry. They made it a requirement that each hospital, would provide outreach to public schools.
For two weeks, this group of dentists had the opportunity to meet, learn and train at NAIT and the University of Alberta. This trip was sponsored through a Rotary vocational training grant.
“Literally it was six weeks training in two weeks,” said Cahoon. “Now they have the equipment, the material and the instruments, so when they go back we expect them to do restorative and preventative work.”
After they completed the training, they spent a week in native communities in southern Alberta where they were able to observe the preventative programs in action.
He said the whole experience was invaluable.
“It was very intense, very long days, “he said. “It has been so amazing.”
He will be able to observe this next evolution of the project as he continues his biannual trips.
His vision was contagious. Many at the schools and professionals in Edmonton gave of their time sand skills voluntarily.
“Now we have people from the University of Alberta who are going to come to Uganda,” he said. “They will go there, do some training, and help us with our outreach.
The experience has an affect on the professionals and staff that supported the program.
“Rotary’s motto is Service Above Self and this told me the very act of service was so rewarding to all those people,” he said.
Last Saturday, these participants were hosted by the local Rotary Club who treated them to breakfast and then took them to the Royal Tyrrell Museum.