Come August 11, Springwood dentist Graham Toulmin will sink his teeth into his biggest project in Africa yet.
He will leave the Mountains for four years to take up a post as the dental director of the Aru Dental School in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
But not only will he run the training school (with wife Wendy as the administrator) he has managed to raise the $80,000 necessary to build it and believes "it is such strategic work that could impact oral health across a large part of DRC".
The building is nearing completion and his job will be to train the Congolese to eventually take over.
"It's the final dental adventure," said the 67-year-old, who has come out of "dental retirement".
Mr Toulmin, who speaks French and Swahili, has been a regular visitor to the troubled central African nation for more than 25 years. His dedicated humanitarian work in one of the world's poorest countries, formerly called Zaire, has saved dozens of lives and he has built three small dental clinics there. But all the clinics were too small to train Congolese dentists.
"The training in Congo is largely theoretical. They don't have the facilities our dental training school will have. We are packing a 40 ft [12 metre] container this week with nine donated dental chairs and lots of dental equipment, supplies, cabinets, benches and bookcases.
"The container will arrive in Mombasa in August and go by truck across Kenya, head north in Uganda and cross into Congo at the border town of Arua to our school in Aru."
But he said they had "several large financial hurdles still to get over" with expensive shipping costs, electricity, X-ray equipment, plumbing and customs bills still to pay.
Some of the costs (including costs to customs) were a "guesstimation" and he is still about $30,000 shy of his eventual target, but he hopes the clinic's equipment will be installed next school holidays, with the clinic up and running by October.
"Every mountain we have had to climb someone has come to help me," he told the Gazette.
In a mass appeal to his friends, he wrote in a recent email: "Seriously, we need your help - but it is a great cause and will do much good."
When he first went to Butembo as an Anglican Church missionary in 1987 his family lived in very primitive surrounds. His makeshift dental clinic was little more than half a brick shell. Every fifth dental patient had HIV (4000 pairs of gloves were recycled and re-sterilised) and the family also survived the start of a frightening civil war, he said.
His latest efforts have been made possible after Anglican Aid in Sydney signed off on the dental development program called TREAT Congo Dental last year. "In March Wendy and I were accepted by CMS Australia [Church Missionary Society] as dental development workers so I have come out of dental retirement to begin what could be a four-year program in Aru setting up the new dental school and getting the first group of students through to graduation."
This will be his 15th visit to the country. To donate contact the Toulmins on 0416 126 368 or email wendy.toulmin@gmail.com. They can be followed via dentalsafariafrica.blogspot.com.
