Please accept this blog in the spirit that it was intended, it's not showboating, it's just for information to tell a story.
About 15 years ago, I had a conversation with Shaenna Loughnane from Bridge2Aid. It was on recommendation from Chris Barrow at that time, who was working with Bridge2Aid, and we were looking at ways of improving our social legacy work, because we felt so privileged to be where we were as a business.
I have no memory of that conversation, but Shaenna recounted it to me on a bus this week while I've been in Tanzania, where I told her that I would really like to support Bridge2Aid, but there was no way I would be able to travel to Tanzania in the foreseeable future, because my life just didn't allow it, and I wasn't prepared to take the time away from my family, having to leave my wife in the lurch with 3 children, horses and dogs and all of that thing.
It took 15 years to get here, and then I did.
About 2 years ago, or a little bit more, Shaenna came to visit the practice. Bridge2aid were in some difficulty because after a change of leadership at that stage, they had changed direction, and many of the people who had previously supported them had decided to support something else.
That actually happened at our practice, and the team decided the direction that Bridge2Aid were going at that stage was not the direction that they wanted to be involved in, and our financial support for charities went in a different direction.
I was sad about that because I had loved the work we'd done with Bridge2Aid and the ability to say that we looked after hundreds of thousands of people in rural Tanzania with the clinical support workers that we helped to train, but that was that.
Then Sheena turned up 2 years ago, after she'd taken back over control of Bridge2Aid as the CEO (she's an extraordinary individual). We talked; she wasn't asking for anything, but I asked her what help she needed because I had responded to an email she'd sent to a group where there were obviously difficulties and problems. She said that they had appointed a dentist to help run the programme as part of the organisation in Tanzania, now that we're in charge of the programmes, and he needed to be paid, and there was no money to pay him.
The organisation was Thedi, which is the government organisation tasked with providing improvements to healthcare under the inspirational leadership of the Chief Dental Officer, who has come into post. Chicco was to run programmes in the region to test the possibility, efficacy, reliability, productivity, etc. And so, what they decided to do was to train dental therapists, of which there are approximately 800 in Tanzania for 70 million people.
The reason for this is that dentists who qualify often move into administration roles, and therefore, they don't do any clinical dentistry, so expanding the role of therapists to do root fillings in single root teeth (front teeth), to do extractions, fillings, and dentures. The treatment of children would massively increase the ability to improve oral health in Tanzania.
There are at least 7 regions around the Mwanza area, the second biggest city in Tanzania, and this is where Bridge2Aid and Thedi are based, together with Dr Chicco, who is now in charge of running all of these programmes to test them, refine them and make them better.
In an instant, I said to Shaenna that we would be able to support Chicco's wages, and we have done so for over two years.
That caused some consternation amongst the charity group at the practice who felt that we were out of budget, but we weren't, and what we've done now is been able to work with Chicco to make sure that he has a stable situation moving forwards, not only to develop his own clinic and look after his own family, but to become this strategic powerhouse in making sure that the training of dental therapists becomes an absolute priority in this region and then expands it to other regions and other areas of Tanzania. The vision for Shaenna and Chicco is to take this model all the way through Tanzania to help 70 million people. It's absolutely now possible to do it because they've proven it.
Chicco sends us an update at the clinic every month, and he beautifully sent me a Maasai Mara blanket and an elephant with an upturned trunk as a present this year. I have seen Chicco on video calls, and he gave me a tour of his practice approximately 17 months ago when he started to open it, so I could see it, but we have never met. It's a very small clinic with very small rooms, and to a dentist walking in without any context, they'd think it was extraordinarily basic, but for Tanzania, it is extraordinarily progressive. He has a handheld digital X-ray machine and a laptop for developing, he's building his own lab, and it's the first place in Tanzania really to do porcelain-infused metal crowns. He has two surgeries in there and a sterilisation suite, it's moving from strength to strength.
The reason I came to Tanzania was not primarily to ride my bike, but it was to meet Chicco. He asked me when we first met on video whether I would be able to come and see him, to meet him. He is so enormously grateful for the help that we have given him, and we are so enormously grateful for him allowing us to be helpful. And so there was an emotional meeting of the pair of us today in the hotel in Mwanza, and you can watch a video taken by Chris Barrow here if that is your type of thing.
I brought some gifts from Nova, the dental surgical instrument company, and from Hu-Friedy, and from others to give Chicco things he could use in his clinic or in the programme, such as extraction forceps, surgical kits, elevators, etc.
I brought him a Scottish quaich and whiskey, just to cement our friendship. And some more Campbell Clinic scrubs that he wears on theprogrammes regularly. Finally, I brought him a letter of invitation to come and lecture in England at The Campbell Academy and potentially have a tour around the United Kingdom telling a story, also to try and raise funds for the programmes.
For me, it was an extraordinary meeting; the bike ride here was sensational, a memory of a lifetime, but meeting Chicco and cementing our friendship was something even more special.
Rajan and I (colleagues on the cycle trip) went to visit his practice. He asked me to examine a patient who had an infection around a lower 3rd molar, and we talked about the treatment plan. He left the patient to be treated. We'll see him tomorrow for a short while, but he was sad that we don't have time for me to go to his house to meet his family and to travel 600 kilometres to one of the other districts to meet his parents.
This is an extraordinary thing, but this guy is utterly brilliant.
He is strategic and entrepreneurial.
He is charismatic and caring.
He is everything you would hope, not only for a dentist, but a leader of dentists, a leader of therapists and a leader of programmes.
I feel so grateful to have met him and to have seen him work. I get the feeling this will not be the last time that I'm here.
I came here to meet him and to ride a bike, but to raise money for these programmes and to help to keep Bridge2Aid on track. We are almost at £70,000 in donations (£80,000 with gift aid).
The Just Giving link is here.
If you haven't donated already or you've liked the story, please give some money before this runs out. We've almost managed to fund two sets of programmes for Bridge2Aid, and we'd like to be able to do that.
Thank you so much for your help.
Blog Post Number - 4436
Colin Campbell, Chris Barrow, and an intrepid group of dentists will be cycling across the plains of Tanzania from Kilimanjaro in early February 2026. If you would like to support the charity, Bridge2Aid, and this extraordinary challenge, please click here.
Thank you for your generosity
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