2015 ROTARY INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION

Successful and Effective Strategies and Resources for Health Education

Projects and Community Health Fairs Monday, 8 June, 2015

2015 ROTARY INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION

Moderator: PDG Karl Diekman, D5160 Panelists: PDG Laura Day. D 5160

PDG Jane Little, D 5010 Past Assistant Governor Jeff Bamford, D 9212 Past Assistant Governor Sheila Hurst, D5160

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What are Rotarian Action Groups?

Rotarian Action Groups can act as Volunteer Consultants for Rotary Clubs and Districts. Their role is to enhance the work of Rotary Clubs and Districts in their area of expertise.

RAG for Population and Development

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WHFRAG is now HEWRAG

World Health Fairs Rotarian Action Group combined with Kenya Smiles

to form the Health Education & Wellness

Rotarian Action Group

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What’s unique about HEWRAG?

Health Education & Wellness Rotarian Action Group

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HOMER, ALASKA HEALTH FAIR

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YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, RUSSIA HEALTH FAIR

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MERIDA HEALTH FAIR EXHIBITS

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CHINA HEALTH FAIR POSTERS

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MYANMAR MEDICAL MISSION TEAM 2015

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MYANMAR HEALTH FAIR PHYSICIANS COUNSELING PATIENTS

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MYANMAR HEALTH FAIR DENTAL CLINIC

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A Model Program for Improving Children’s Oral Health in

Kenya, East Africa, & Beyond

A GLOBAL GRANT PROGRAM of

Districts 5160 (North Central California), 9212 (Kenya), &

6150 (Central & NE Arkansas)

KENYA SMILES

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The Rotarian, February 2014

prepare traditional grain- and produce-based meals. Team member Jim Green, a member of the Rotary Club of West Calaveras, Calif., expects that the 12-hour days the group spent in the field will pay divi-dends as mothers instill good habits in their children. “No mother in the world wants any-thing but good things for her children,” Green says.

The educational compo-nent is what sets Kenya Smiles apart from many other dental projects, says team member Maureen Valley, an ortho-dontist on the faculty of the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. Some tradi-tional dental missions tally success by teeth drilled and extracted, she notes. “There’s been so little attention to attacking the root cause with education and intervention.”

Peter DuBois, executive director of the California Den-tal Association, concurs: “This program is working with the dental community in Kenya to enhance the oral health of the Kenyan population” by lever-aging the resources of Rotary, governmental, and medical leaders. “I have never seen a program quite like it.”

DuBois, whose 25,000-member organization serves a state with roughly the same population as Kenya’s, arranged meetings with dental profes-sionals for the Kenyan VTT delegation and brought the team members to the floor of the California State Assem-bly, where they were recognized by lawmakers.

The project is good news in a place where “the only thing

they can do is extract teeth,” says Jeff Bamford, past Kenya country chair and charter pres-ident of the Rotary Club of Karen-Nairobi.

“Yes, we need more dentists and more mobile facilities, ”

Bamford continues, “but right at the beginning, we need to make sure that tooth decay happens as little as possible.” He is heartened that the proj-ect’s biggest evangelists have been the children themselves.

“I see the kids with great big smiles on their faces. When we talk to them, they’re so juiced about it. We can see the knowledge spread from one grade to another.”

– BRAD WEBBER

UP FRONT

In July, 5,000 children in Kenya received backpacks filled with items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, and collapsible cups. The Kenya Smiles project also funds education for mothers and helps train local dentists.

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Fewer than 1,000 dentists serve the 44 million peo-ple of Kenya, from the far

reaches of the bush to Nai-robi’s vast Kibera slum. Den-tal hygiene is a rarity outside privileged urban regions. “In most rural areas, people have to travel long distances to see a dentist, ” says Stephen Irungu, chief dental officer at Kenya’s Ministry of Health and past president of the Ro-tary Club of Murang’a. “Most of the patients will go to the

dental clinic only because they have pain.”

Cultural norms suggest that “it’s OK if your teeth fall out, if your teeth are broken. They think people are not going to die from it,” says Past District Governor Geeta Manek.

Those perceptions belie the fact that tooth decay is the most common chronic disease of childhood and a harbinger of health woes in later years, says Karen Sokal-Gutierrez, a physician trained

in pediatrics, preventive medi-cine, and public health with the Joint Medical Program of the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco. “We worry about AIDS and malaria and TB among the world’s poor, but tooth decay is so much more common,” she says. “Unfortunately, it’s always been neglected,” even as processed and sugared foods proliferate in develop-ing nations.

Enter Kenya Smiles, a proj-ect created by Sheila Hurst, an educational consultant and member of the Rotary Club of Redding West, Calif., and Laura Day, 2012-13 governor of District 5160. The partner-ship with the Rotary Club of Karen-Nairobi – which also received support from dis-tricts 9212 (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan) and 6150 (Arkansas) – was part of a global grant that brought a vocational training team (VTT) of six Kenyan dentists, including Irungu, to California in April 2013 for meetings, seminars, and training.

In July, 10 Americans, including Hurst, Day, and Sokal-Gutierrez, made the trip to Kenya, where they distrib-uted four suitcase-size portable dental operating units, educa-tional materials, and 5,000 Rotary-blue backpacks filled with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and collapsible stainless-steel cups – dubbed “magic cups” by their young recipients. A $10 donation funded each kit.

The team demonstrated how to use the kits with a hippo hand puppet, an oversize tooth and brush, and a white-board game with magnetic cutouts representing health-ful and unhealthful foods and drinks, which pupils tried to swipe away. “The message was ‘which one is going to stick to your teeth?’” Hurst says. “There would be laughter and smiles when the food would slide off.”

The project is also fund-ing nutrition education for mothers, along with locally manufactured, energy-efficient Jiko stoves to make it easier to

K E N YA S M I L E S

Project gets to the root of dental problems

UP FRONT

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The Rotarian, August 2013

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Identifying the Problem

Kenya 43 million people 1,000 dentists California 38 million people 30,000 dentists

Canada 35 million people 23,000 dentists

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Addressing the Problem

Improving the Oral Health Of Children in Kenya

through a Sustainable, Easily Adapted, Dental

Preventive Care Program

Kenya Smiles

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How Does It Work?

Building AWARENESS Providing INFORMATION Promoting EDUCATION

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5000 children were beneficiaries

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Kenya Smiles is improving children’s oral health,

www.kenyasmiles.org - 4kenyasmiles@gmail.com

and many of its strategies and techniques can be used to create other successful projects.

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KENYA SMILES IN MYANMAR, JANUARY 2015

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MYANMAR ORAL HEALTH PROJECT

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MYANMAR MEDICAL TEAM JOINS ORAL HEALTH LESSON

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MYANMAR ORAL HEALTH PROJECT

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KENYA SMILES IN MYANMAR, JANUARY 2015

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3000 CHILDREN IN MYANMAR BENEFITTED

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For more information, please visit:

www.hewrag.org: Health Education & Wellness Rotarian Action Group www.kenyasmiles.org: Kenya Smiles www.rotary.org/actiongroups: Rotarian Action Groups