March 2010 www.dental-practice.org
identified in which IOM is practised:
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad and
Rwanda.
An excited response came from
Pastor Edwin Ochola of the Thessalia
FPFK Church in Kenya. He had asked
for help in finding educational
resources to address the practice and
20 copies of the information leaflet
were posted to him in December
2009. His church held an awareness
campaign in early January targeting
local women’s groups and two
mothers had confessed that they had
lost children as a result of IOM. The Matrix
practice is performed widely there
by women known as nyamrerwa
The traditionalist healer displaying her
tools – sharpened iron nails
(herbalists) and one of these attended
the meeting.
At the next campaign in January, they were targeting the whole village
and Edwin invited us to attend. Not very feasible, you might think! However,
Barbara Koffman (Action Group member), dental co-ordinator for Christian
Relief Uganda (CRU), immediately e-mailed Leonard, one of her Ugandan
contacts (a public dental health worker working near the Kenyan border), and Inserts like a wedge
Form Contact Point
arranged for him to go to Muhoroni to pass on his considerable experience
to the non-dental group and take the IOM educational booklets and posters
developed by Dentaid and CRU.
So on 16th January, Leonard met with the group of five people running the
campaign. They walked up and down the hills visiting 12 individual homes, all
of which had children who had been
subjected to IOM, talking to people on
a one-to-one basis.
Leonard reported that some parents
took their babies for IOM immediately
after birth without any symptoms
of illness. Some traditional healers
continue taking out a tooth every time
a child is sick until it is one year old.
At the home of one of the healers,
Kalenjin mothers listening during the
after a long interview, she brought
awareness campaign
the tools she had been using for IOM: Flexible wing exerts
Tight cervical marginal
sharpened iron nails!
pressure for maintained
adaptation prevents
The next day the group visited the local church and spoke to the whole
separation and cervical
overhangs
adaption
congregation. Leonard spoke first about dental hygiene and the causes,
prevention and treatment of dental diseases. Then the subject of IOM was
discussed.
World’s Fastest
A second meeting was held at the home of the local government council
representative where the group were able to interact with a number of Composite Matrix?
public leaders, politicians and parents, and a task force was appointed to help
combat IOM by more awareness campaigns and by talking to the traditional
healers. A dispensary with a qualified dentist was requested to be put in FenderMate tryKit
place, as the nearest dentist is 100km away.
Pastor Edwin has asked Dentaid to produce the IOM leaflet in the local
language, Kiswahili, and at the time of writing his translation has just been
received! Dentaid is already producing a version in Luganda, a Ugandan
for only
language, and one in Arabic has also been mooted.
For further information on IOM, please visit www.dentaid.org and click on
£ 9.00*
Overseas Projects. The
IOM information leaflet
(value £ 26.00)
can be downloaded or
printed copies obtained
READER ENQUIRY DP 123
free from rosemary@
*Redeemable against your next purchase of FenderMate.
dentaid.org.
Promotion code DP02 to be mentioned on order.
Dentaid, Giles Lane,
Landford, Salisbury, More Designs by Dentists
Wilts. SP5 2BG.
www.directadental.com
Telephone 01794
ecta AB
Dir Distributed in the UK by Trycare, Tel. 01274-88 10 44
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dentaid.org; web
www.dentaid.org.
3108-1001
The team holding IOM leaflets
39
10march.indd 39 22/02/2010 13:55:21
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