Afghanistan Dental Relief Project
Dr. James Rolfe
What a joy it has been to be involved in helping the poor Afghan people. It’s been over a year since we contacted you with our last report about the progress of the dental project. A lot has happened since then, so we want to bring you up to date. About eighteen months ago, The owner of the land used by the project in Kabul decided to sell it. First, he offered for ADRP to buy it, but the combined price of the two parcels was over $500,000, and it all had to be paid at once, in cash. We were not able to even begin to consider this, so the land owner sold the properties and we have had to move. At this time, we have found another site, and our clinic and containers are ready to go there. Our Afghan staff of sixteen trained technicians and doctors are eager to get back to work. Our clinic has provided over 100,000 poor Afghans with high-quality dental care since its founding in 2008. Our Technical School has trained the first professional dental technicians in all of Afghanistan. We are ready to start it again.
Afghanistan suffers from a lack of infrastructure. When Soviets invaded, all those Afghans who could afford to leave did so. Unfortunately for Afghanistan, these people were the movers and shakers of Afghanistan’s infrastructure. All that remained were the workers and the poor people. It is still that way. In all of Afghani-stan there is only one dental x-ray machine. Ninety percent of people do not have access to a dentist. People often die from infections caused by multiple abscessed teeth.
We need your help to re-establish our clinic, so that we can make a difference. We can treat sixty people a day in our clinic. We can train more dental assistants so that the few dentists there can do better work and provide safer treatment. We can make more dental hygienists to clean all those teeth. Our lab technician graduates can provide the high-quality dental restorations that will help people to chew and smile better.
We have a matching grant from a local foundation for your consideration. Any donation you can make in The following month will be matched to the penny. Please help us to re-establish the clinic and school. There is nothing like it in all of Afghanistan. Ten years and four million dollars has been invested in helping the recovery of the dental infrastructure there. Now we are taking it to the next level. Our new site will have a special clinic to provide more sophisticated options to Afghans for a small fee, and will also treat non-Afghans for the fee that they would pay if they were to go to Dubai for dental care (which is often the case). This income will completely self-fund the dental care costs for treating the poor people for free. So, it’s really important to get started on the right foot, and we are ready to do that, if you can just help us. Remember, we need your help right away, so don’t hesitate! 100% of your donation goes directly to the Project itself. All overhead of running the home organization is paid out of pocket by staff volunteers.
To donate, you can use these options:
· Go to the website www.adrpinc.org and click on the “donate” icon. It will take you to a PayPal site where you can make your donation;
· Send a check to ADRP, Post Office Box 734; Santa Barbara, CA 93102;
· Call our headquarters at 805-963-2329, and we will process your credit card donation over the phone.
Thank you in advance for your generosity. We all appreciate the opportunity that you are providing to us that allows us to do this work. Thank you for being there for us, so that this can happen!
THE Afghanistan Dental Relief Project, inc.
A 501 (c) 3 charitable organization
(805) 963-2329
P.O. Box 734 Santa Barbara, CA
93102-0734