Programs > Partner Initiatives > Oral Healthcare > History

History of MCW’s Oral Healthcare Support in Tanzania

In 2001, MCW organized its first dental outreach project at its new community center in Majengo, Arusha, where New York University School of Dentistry students and faculty delivered two weeks of free dental services to more than 200 patients. Henry Schein Cares, the corporate responsibility program of Henry Schein, Inc., the world’s leading dental and medical supplies provider, contributed dental supplies and equipment in-kind to the project and, has continued to do so since then.

Two years later, in 2003, MCW organized its second dental outreach in the rural region of Songea, located in the southwest quadrant of the country near the Mozambiquan border. Over 500 patients received treatment from a group of volunteer dentists out of a local hospital clinic. A third outreach group treated nearly 650 patients in Songea in 2004.

In 2005, MCW built a new community center in Songea. In addition to offering entrepreneurial training programs to the community, the center included a fully equipped, stand-alone dental clinic. Today, the clinic is staffed by the Songea Municipal Council under the direction of the Regional Dental Officer.

The Songea dental clinic has become the base for MCW’s dental outreach teams that continue to deliver on-site treatment to hundreds of children and youth every year. The program has now expanded to include preventive oral hygiene education in community schools. It is here where MCW came to deeply appreciate first-hand the insurmountable challenges faced by many Tanzanians in accessing oral healthcare.

Because of our strong foundation in Songea and our partnership with dental suppliers and dental schools in the USA, President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete recognized that MCW is well positioned to address access to oral healthcare in a systematic and integrated fashion. So, he asked MCW to assist Tanzania’s only dental school, MUHAS School of Dentistry, with its equipment needs. MCW agreed that this expansion was indeed a good fit.

This led to the September 2008 signing of an MCW-MUHAS Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), dedicated to improving oral healthcare across Tanzania. As part of the MoU and based on a needs assessment, MUHAS received three forty-foot containers packed with new dental equipment. The container content, along with the accompanying technical expertise, was valued at more than two million dollars. Industry Partners included Attieh Medico, Dental Components International (DCI), Everlast Logistics, Henry Schein Inc., Midmark Corporation, and Sirona Dental. President Kikwete officially opened the newly renovated school on November 2, 2009.

As a result of MCW’s decade of OHC experience in Tanzania, Dr. Emil Kikwilu, the former MUHAS dean, who was actively involved in facilitating the MCW-MUHAS project, was invited by the Chief Dental Officer of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to help draft a policy paper on how to integrate oral health prevention and care with basic maternal and child healthcare.