Teaming up in Timor Leste

Dental services in Timor Leste, which lies in the Indian Ocean, were affected by the country’s bitter civil war with Indonesia and many people were suffering as they could not access dental care due to a shortage of dentists.

Rotary provided a £35,000 grant to facilitate the training of dental students at the University of Dili’s dental school. It was the first course of its kind ever to be run in Timor Leste.  The money also funded seven DentaidBoxes – portable dental surgeries that can be operated without access to running water or electricity.

Now, two years after the initial grant, the first dental assistants are preparing to graduate and are already volunteering their time to serve their communities in dental clinics. Working alongside qualified dentists, the trainees are gaining valuable clinical experience and expect to go straight into employment when they graduate in August.

Three further graduates are hoping to work alongside Ross Brandon from Cooperativo Café Timor (CCT). CCT is a fair trade co-operative of coffee farmers established in 2000, which now has 19,600 members. The cooperative has a medical centre but, until now, has not had enough dentists and therapists to offer dental care.