Dental Screening at Mavuno Village

 

Before Ian headed back to the UK, we spent a day at Mavuno village screening the children and workers for dental problems.  Mavuno village is a revolutionary orphanage project which aims to have 30 large houses in a self contained village, with a family and 10 orphans in each house.  The family based approach helps to stop the children becoming institutionalised, and the aim is that they are able to function well in Tanzanian society when they grow up.  It's an ambitious project currently in it's infancy.  Have a look at http://www.mavunovillage.org/index.shtml   for more details.

We set up two dental screening tables on the verandah of one of the houses overlooking lake victoria.  Definitely the best view from a dental surgery that I have ever worked in.  While waiting for their teeth to be looked at, lots of the workers and children sat making bead necklaces.  Isaac enjoyed joining in playing with the beads.  We only had a few problems to deal with, and Paul got on with removing two teeth from one of the workers who had toothache.

After the screening, Beth gave a dental health education talk to the group with the help of two willing volunteers!!