Hello members of DentalTown. My name is William Silverthorn, and together with my wife Lily, we founded a mission in south Peru area of Ica. Due to a devastating earthquake in this area in 2007, when we retired a few years later, we decided that this was an area we wanted to serve. We have been building a strong mission presence here since opening in 2013. The communities we serve are predominantly villages of farm workers who work very hard for very little money. We help with interacting with their children, homework, music and english teaching, sports, education, family counseling, health and more.
This year, 2019, after much discussion with the local clinic, and with leadership from Monica Dunn, RDH (from Illinois, USA), we had a very successful dental hygiene week with the local villagers. I will go into the details of our success and our challenges going forward, because I was asked by Dental Town, but also since we are very excited about what we are doing even though we have so many challenges in front of us.
Monica came to us earlier in the year as an experienced public health program director, clinic manager, human resources manager, as well as expertise in program planning and development. Monica has had considerable experience providing dental services for the underserved population in East Central Illinois, working with the local health department. That program delivers care in a fixed site clinic and schools with portable dental equipment. Using both portable and fixed site modes of care delivery increases the likelihood that children will receive the restorative care they need and provides more children with a dental home. Monica visited our mission to assess the oral health needs in the area and evaluate the possibility of partnering with our mission, using her expertise to increase access to care for the areas we serve.
With a lot of prior communication and meeting between the mission and the local dental clinic, we set up an excellent six days of patient visits for Monica and her team. Using the local clinic for two days, and two different schools for two days each, Monica, two assistants, and a mission provided translator, together with the local clinic dentist (Milagro), succeeded in cleaning 150 mouths, many that have never had a cleaning.
This program was very successful for many reasons:
The leadership of Monica Dunn, who came with assistants, and all supplies needed to provide preventive care, and the equipment necessary to work in schools.
• Their desire to work hard and give many days of their time in Peru for the better-ment of the health of local villagers who are poor rural farmworkers.
• Strong communication and enthusiasm from the local school leadership in union with the clinic and faith placed in their knowledge and relationship with La Misión
• The proximity of the local clinic, only 1-kilometer walk from La Misión, the schools were even closer. 
• The appreciation and visibility of the success of this program brought out the health leadership from the city of Ica (15 kilometers, 20 minutes, to our south), who the local clinic reports to which will lead to our expanding this program in the future to additional nearby clinics.
• Humor footnote: Only a few weeks after Monica and her team returned to the USA, the local clinic got their dental chair reupholstered and encouraged me to send a picture of it to Monica. They definitely want a repeat of this visit.
Monica is already working on scheduling another visit for 2020 (late June-early July). Although we want to walk before we run, we are excited about opportunities to expand this program. Potential opportunities include:
• Additional hygienists joining future trips
• Adding dentists in future trips to develop a restorative component; Dr. Sidra Iqbal, DDS, MHA, from Texas, USA, having done other field mission trips, has expressed interest in joining the program. Additional dentists are also lining up.
• Other small dental clinics near the mission may offer the opportunity for expansion
• The clinic's management center in the large city to our south, Ica, was very impressed with the initial visit. They have an even further reach around the city with many other clinic outposts for expansion opportunities.
Even after our successful trial program this year, challenges abound. At present, we have the wonderful problem of planning with our local clinic, and Ica Clinic leadership, to be prepared for an expanded visit in June/July of 2020. Many questions still need to be addressed as we plan to move forward. Obtaining portable dental equipment, dental instruments, handpieces, small equipment, and supplies (disposables, dental materials, and other essentials for dental care) is critical to the future of the program. The equipment would be housed at and maintained by the mission, available for use by future teams.
Each portable "dental office" costs upwards of $6,000 to $7,000. The biggest challenge is finding or raising funds to acquire hopefully at least two of these units; Donations are highly needed.
• Additional needs include portable dental chairs, operator stools, fillings, and other supplies that we hopefully can also acquire and bring with us.
• We are not short of space to do this sort of work (with clinics, schools, and the mission), nor are we short of very interested parties from the clinics, schools, and local government in working with the mission. Getting the needed equipment is our current challenge. Until we can do this, we are restricted to working with the resources available at the clinics.
• Donations made to our website for this purpose would definitely assist and be fully tax-deductible and will be committed to go 100% to the dental program.. We are in the ‘investment stage’ at this time, so anything you can do to assist us is most appreciative and will be put to immediate work. If you know of specific GRANTS that may be applicable for our work here, please do point them out to us.
If you are interested in joining a dental mission trip, setting up or joining a similar trip at a different time of year, joining a medical focus trip, or anything related, please drop us an email. We would love to discuss the possibilities with you. The mission’s focus is on serving this community and all the others around it on a missionary basis. We have a specific webpage for the dental ministry to discuss our current plans and costs.
If you are new to our mission ministry, please click here to know more about where we are and why we are there. Our five villages have less than 10,000 people and have two working medical/dental clinics that we will partner with, expanding to the 2nd most likely on this 2020 visit. We are also, as mentioned, able to expand further to many other clinics surrounding the large city of Ica if the resources present themselves. We have an enthusiastically engaged dental community in Peru that is quite receptive to the help offered. Please pray for our ministry and those that may come to help.
The
harvest is plentiful, the workers are few"!!
William & Lily Silverthorn, founders of La Misión, Ica, Perú. Info@LAMAministry.org
[all donations are 100% tax deductable in USA. EIN# 30-0591702]