Ann Arbor, MI — September 22, 2011 — Three faculty members, six second-year dental students, and a dental informatics technician from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry joined colleagues from other U-M schools and colleges this summer in a shared effort to make a difference in the lives of residents in a small town in the East African nation of Kenya.

The University-wide initiative, known as the Kenya Summer Research Program, also included participants from the Schools of Medicine and Public Health as well as the Colleges of Pharmacy, Engineering, and LS&A. The groups worked on a range of projects to help people in Meru, Kenya, a village of about 43,000 located about 110 miles northeast of Nairobi and is only five miles north of the equator.

Dr. Sunil Kapila, chair of the Department of Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry, led the group from the School of Dentistry that included Drs. Robert Eber and Yvonne Kapila. “We prepared a dental health survey and worked with other health care providers there to develop a broader, general health survey. We also spent time in classrooms providing oral hygiene and general oral health care education,” he said. “Next summer we will return to Meru to actually gather data from the two surveys and then use the information to develop programs that improve access to care and address other general health issues.”

Part of New Pathways Initiative

Dr. Yvonne Kapila, director of the School’s Global Initiatives Program, said the dental students who volunteered for the Kenya program are all participants in the new Pathways program, specifically, the Health Care Delivery Pathway. “They had an opportunity to see, up close, that oral health care concerns can vary, not just in another part of the world, but even in the same village,” she said. “They need to learn how to be adaptable and use the resources available in creating solutions that address the concerns that meet the needs of residents.”

Eber, a clinical professor of dentistry and director of the Health Care Delivery Pathway, was instrumental in many educational and organizational parts of the summer research program. The Pathways program was launched last year to give dental student ways to gain additional insights, training, and opportunities for professional growth in areas that include research, leadership, and health care delivery. “They are an enhancement to the School’s core dental curriculum,” Eber said. “Combined with the dental curriculum, Pathways enable students to customize a dental education that is tailored to their interests and career aspirations.”

Yvonne Kapila said the Kenya Summer Research Program is “a shared Michigan effort that is designed to be ongoing.” To formalize the relationship, she said U-M signed agreements with the two major universities in the area, Kenya Methodist University and the Meru University College of Science and Technology. The leaders of both schools invited U-M participants in the Kenya Summer Research Program to plant tree seedlings in a central location on campus to symbolize the new bond.

Dental Students Enthused

Dental students said they were excited to participate because their experiences in Kenya gave them an opportunity to assess oral health care needs in another country, learn more about another culture, and to use their knowledge and clinical skills to contribute to a community in need.

Ashley Green said, “I became more culturally aware of the health disparities that exist internationally. I plan to use my experiences in Kenya as a steppingstone for my future endeavors in international oral health care service.”

Dental student Aaron Ruhlig said he “enjoyed the opportunity to work with classmates and faculty outside of the traditional classroom experience.”

Another student, Nathan Poel, said one of his most memorable learning experiences was not in a classroom or clinic, but talking to two high school seniors as they walked 45 minutes from a secondary school to their homes after a day of classes.

“They were so thankful for the opportunity to get a good education,” Poel said. “They talked at length about the vices and barriers that led many of their friends away from education. As we walked and talked, they repeatedly emphasized the importance of family and pointed out where many of their relatives lived.” Poel added that both students “were very interested in the day-to-day activities of Americans, but had a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that most Americans do not farm, as they do in Kenya.”

Purifying a School’s Drinking Water

As a part of the Kenya Summer Research Program, 12 refurbished computers were delivered from U-M to elementary and secondary schools in Meru. Thomas Nyongesa, a Dental Informatics technician, installed the computers and trained teachers how to use them so they could instruct their students.

However, Nyongesa, who lived in western Kenya before emigrating to the U.S., served as interpreter, translating Swahili to English and also interpreting Kenyan English to American and vice versa. He also played an important role when he unexpectedly helped solve a school’s drinking water problem.

“Growing up in Kenya, I knew much of the water was not safe to drink and leads to a considerable amount of diarrhea and other problems. When a teacher at one of the local schools told me many of the kids were sick most of the time, and they suspected it was because of the water supply, I decided to investigate,” he said.

Tracing the source of water that was flowing through a pipe from a forest, Nyongesa used an empty water bottle he had, filled it with water flowing from the pipe, and saw “an incredible amount of debris in the water as I held it up to the sunlight.” Since he brought a packet of water purification chemicals with him, Nyongesa said he added several of them to an 18-liter container holding the water. “It cleared up about 15 or 20 minutes later,” he said. “But that was a short-term solution. My hope is that we can find a way to have a larger supply of purified water continually delivered to the school.”

Reflecting on the experiences of faculty, students, and staff, Yvonne Kapila said, “It was a great experience, but it’s just the beginning. We plan to return next summer to complete the surveys and look at new ways to help the people of Kenya so they can carry on what we have created with them.”

The Kenya Summer Research Program is funded by the U-M School of Dentistry in cooperation with the University’s Multidisciplinary Clinical Researchers in Training Program (MCRiT), the Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduates (GIEU), and the Dr. Dale Williams Family Foundation.