Today we’re launching our Big Skill Share Appeal. It is the next milestone in our work – and we thought that you’d like to hear a little bit more about our plans and where we’re heading!
Bridge2Aid has now provided access to safe emergency dental care to over 4 million people in Tanzania. It’s a fantastic achievement. We have done this with volunteers from the UK dental community training rural health workers. We are saving lives and freeing millions more from the prospect of misery and pain. However we need to go further – and we have a unique plan. We’ve already taken a massive step in the right direction, but we need to take a great leap forwards because the rural population of Tanzania alone is 35 million people. Our Big Skill Share is a game changer, a huge next move. In essence it goes back to the story about the man and the fish. Give a man a fish and you’ve given him a meal – teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. We’re just taking it one step further – teaching the ‘fishermen’ how to teach others too!
The Big Skill Share is Phase 2 of our model – we return to the District Dental Officers who we’ve been working alongside on our training programmes and give them the skills to teach emergency dental skills themselves. This is where we see our core value of sustainability really come to life. It’s a model that becomes self sufficient, and it’s the only realistic way that our work can tackle such a vast problem.
Our model:
PHASE 1 – Groundbreaking: UK dental volunteers begin training Tanzanian health workers in emergency dental skills
PHASE 2 – The Big Skill Share: UK volunteers teach District Dental Officers how to train in emergency dental skills – ‘training the trainer’
PHASE 3 – Sustainable Change: Tanzanian trainers train Tanzanian health workers emergency dental skills supported by Bridge2Aid expertise.
This unique model means that training in emergency dental skills can become a rapid roll-out where millions and millions of people in some of the poorest parts of the world have access to vital treatment. As our programme takes off in Tanzania we are then able to offer training into more countries where there is an urgent need.
The Big Skill Share is key to solidifying the success of our Tanzanian programme and we need your help to make it a reality. By donating to our great leap forwards you’ll be changing the lives of people in this country forever. With your contribution we can build on the training programmes we’ve already run and embed this change for good.
Please help with our vital work by donating by the pink ‘make a donation’ button at the top right of this page. With your help we can help millions more out of pain.
