Sustaining partnerships for oral health improvement in Malawi – looking to the next five years

As regular readers will know, a large number of organisations from multiple sectors have played critical roles in the MalDent Project. For some months a number of us had been advocating a meeting that would bring key players together for face-to-face discussions during which we could share ideas for the next steps. That meeting became a reality on Tuesday 4th June, when a group of us met for a one-day workshop in Nottingham.

It was extremely fortunate that Dr Mwapatsa Mipando, whose vision and drive had underpinned the birth of the MalDent Project in 2017, had arrived in the United Kingdom from Malawi on Sunday 2nd June. He was in Scotland on University of Glasgow business but was able to take time to join us for the workshop. Other delegates included representatives from Bridge2Aid, Dentaid, Smileawi, The Borrow Foundation, AMECA, Henry Schein Dental, Medical Aid International, ProDental CPD and the Universities of Dundee, Glasgow and London.

Many thanks are due to Shaenna Loughnane, CEO of Bridge2Aid, who undertook much of the organisation, including the identification of our venue. One of Bridge2Aid’s supporters is Colin Campbell, who has established The Campbell Academy as an integral educational component of his dental practice in Nottingham. Colin provided this fantastic facility for us free of charge and also supplied all of the catering – a very generous contribution to the cause.

The meeting room was perfect for our purposes. Coffee was available for us all as we arrived and prepared for the meeting to kick-off at 10am.

In addition to those of us attending in person, there was a Zoom link for colleagues to join on-line, and this allowed Lorna Macpherson, Kathy Wilson and David Williams to participate. Shaenna welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Colin for use of the facility.

Prior to the meeting, each organisation had submitted a written summary of its activities, interests and expertise. Shaenna had collated these and made them available online to delegates. However, after Shaenna’s welcome, representatives from each organisation were invited to say a few additional words about their interests and potential roles in Malawi. By the end of the session, we were very well informed about each other’s activities.

I provided a short overview of some of the more significant partnerships and collaborations that have contributed to the MalDent Project’s progress since 2017.

I finished the brief presentation with a slide that identified the network of partners from across multiple sectors who have generously supported and engaged with the various work streams to date:

We then broke for coffee and croissants, while networking continued.

After coffee we reminded ourselves of the seven pillars of Malawi’s National Oral Health Policy…

… and the objectives of the policy as stated by the Malawi Government Ministry of Health:

The work proper then began for the delegates, who were divided into two separate groups to discuss the question ‘What would success look like in five year’s time?’. Post-it notes and flip charts were provided …

… and both groups engaged fully with the discussion, including those on-line who joined the group in the main meeting room via Zoom on the laptop:

By the end of the session both flip charts were well populated with ideas that had been subsequently grouped into themes:

Discussion continued over lunch, as we enjoyed the delicious food suppled by Colin and his team:

After lunch, each team fed back with a summary of their discussions:

During the general discussion that followed, we began identifying and prioritising key work streams. Some were very clear, including the work to develop a child oral health improvement programme for Malawi and the need for a plan to address the challenges that face equipment installation, maintenance and repair. However, we need to distill the many ideas that were shared during the workshop to produce a coherent and integrated plan that maps back onto the Ministry of Health objectives for the National Oral Health Policy. That work is now underway and will be shared in due course with colleagues in Malawi, to allow them to provide further comment and insights. These agreed outputs will then form the basis of funding bids to support continuation of the partnership working.

As is customary, we closed the event with a group photograph, including our colleagues who had joined on-line via the laptop.

The workshop offered a wonderful opportunity for all the players to get to know one another better, and the discussions have furnished us with a rich source of ideas for our next steps. Thanks are due to all the delegates who gave up time in very busy schedules to travel to Nottingham and to contribute in such a positive manner. Having Mwapatsa with us for the day was a special bonus, providing important insights from a Malawian perspective.

Massive thanks are due to Colin Campbell for providing us with such a wonderful facility at no charge and to the Academy Manager, Brooke, who ensured that everything ran smoothly on the day. Finally, many thanks to Shaenna, who worked so hard behind the scenes and on the day to prepare for, and deliver, the event.

So much of what we discussed during the day involved education in a variety of environments. Themes included sustaining high quality teaching of dental therapists and dentists, up-skilling other cadres of health workers and community volunteers to deliver oral health messages, delivering biomedical engineering training to ensure continuing functionality of dental equipment, and engaging with the school sector to develop child oral health improvement interventions.

The quote from Nelson Mandela, high up on the wall of our meeting room at The Campbell Academy, could not have been better chosen for the day’s activities.