In January I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Tanzania and Malawi to meet with some of our partners and funders. It was a hectic few days in Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Lilongwe spending time with Songas, Benjamin Mkapa Foundation, CUAMM, the Tanzanian Chief Dental Officer, Education and Health for All, Miracle Corners of Tanzania and CYESE.
As an organisation we try to carry out as much work as possible via Skype and email but there is no substitute for meeting in real life.
It was particularly exciting to spend some quality time with our colleagues in Malawi. I met with Dr Wiston Mukiwa (Secretary of Dental Association of Malawi) and Dr Nedson Fosiko (Deputy Director Clinical Services at the Ministry of Health).
I first met with the good doctors in June 2019 when Dr Fosiko hosted a meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Medical Council of Malawi, the Dental Association of Malawi and Jeremy Bagg of the Maldent Project. This initial meeting was the first step towards delivering our training to remote rural locations in Malawi. Since that initial meeting discussions have moved on well and much progress has been made – including a delegation from Malawi visiting one of our training programmes in Tanzania.
Dr Fosiko is a very busy man and our 2pm meeting finally took place at 8pm. We met with Dr Mukiwa and discussed all of the opportunities and roadblocks as we move towards carrying out our initial pilot training programme later this year. There is an obvious enthusiasm and passion for the work that we are proposing.
There is still a lot of work to do, but with partners like these we are very optimistic about the future.
Paul Tasman
