Tanzania is one of Africa’s more successful democracies, yet it is also one of the poorest countries in the world. It ranks in the bottom 3% of the world in it’s ability to provide healthcare to it’s population. Per capita income is less than $1 per day.

Luna Vista Rotary of Woodland, California (District 5160), was asked to work with International Health Partners-US-TZ (a 501c3 in Tanzania who is building a hospital in the city of Mwanza, Tanzania) to equip a dental clinic at their hospital site. Tanzania has approximately 1 dentist for every 186,000 people (the US has approximately 1 dentist for every 1,720 people). Due to the lack of available dental treatment, “friends” are enlisted to extract diseased teeth when pain and infection are uncontrolled. Too often, this results in worsening of the infection or in some cases death.

For the past two years Luna Vista Rotary has built a partnership with other Rotary Clubs in Northern and Southern California and Northern and Southern Nevada, to raise money to equip and supply a dental clinic. Luna Vista successfully submitted a grant to District 5160 for matching funds ($15,000) as well as to TRF ($24,000) to complete funding of the clinic. Total cost of the project is $57,100. In the coming months, Luna Vista will be shipping a container filled with dental equipment, dental supplies, hospital equipment and supplies to Tanzania.

Once the container arrives in Tanzania, some members of the partnering Rotary Clubs, will travel to Tanzania to help set up the clinic and perform dental treatment for patients and help educate dental practioners in the Mwanza area on current dental practices.

We would like to thank all the Rotaries who have helped make this project a success—Woodland Noon Club, Woodland Sunrise Club, West Sacramento Rotary, Tahoe Douglas Rotary, Victorville Rotary, Las Vegas Rotary, Rotary Club of Mwanza and especially Green Valley Rotary of Henderson, Nevada without whom this project would not have succeeded.

Our container will ship in late September, and we still have room in the container for additional dental and hospital supplies and equipment. If you or your club would like to contribute supplies/equipment to this project, please contact Dexter Quiggle at quiggs@sbcglobal.net. We are still in need of more dental supplies (anesthetic, amalgam, Fuji 9 restorative material, tooth brushes, and X-ray film sizes #1 and #2 single film), towels, wash clothes, and baby clothes for the birthing center, nail guns and associated nails for construction at the site and a surgery table for the operating room.