A Project Proposal on Transferring Education Skills of Japanese Denture Arts and Technology to Rwanda July 2012 TechnoQuay Co., Ltd 1
Introduction With our respect and appreciation to His Excellency, Dr. Charles Murigande, the Ambassador of Rwanda for Japan, and also to Mr. Benedicto Nshimiyimana, the First Counselor of the Embassy, that both gentlemen spared their precious time for us to share ideas and opinions with us at the embassy, this is our great pleasure, and is honorable to have this opportunity to propose our thoughts of a project for Rwanda. Japan and Rwanda have been improving economical and cultural relationships through some Agricultural projects and developments, and also with Manpower development projects such as IT off shore business. Here, we would like to propose our project to transfer Japanese dental arts and technologies to Rwanda, especially traditional denture solutions. Since Japanese dental technicians are already well accepted by other countries, we strongly believe that providing those technologies together with the education systems could be one of the useful contribution of Japan, not only to Rwanda but also to neighboring countries, with those skills being transferred by Rwandan people in the near future. Why is No Teeth bad for health? Leaving the place empty after taking of a tooth, the neighbor teeth come closer to cover the place. The other side of tooth to bite together (Upper tooth against lower one) will grow too long, the alignment of the teeth could go out of order, that would cause chewing and digesting problems. If this situation was left longer, it could be more trouble to open the mouth for foods, also for pronunciation to talk. At this situation, restoration of the teeth with such as dentures and bridges will be more difficult, it may need to take off more teeth to keep better chewing alignments. Primary factors of this project 1. Improvement for better health and long lives Dental treatments in Rwanda is not in high level yet since the country recently got started the new establishment, according to His Excellency and Mr. Counselor of the Embassy. We understand, that just remove the bad tooth to stop the pain, then finish, must be widely common senses Here however, from the dentistry s point of view, missing part of teeth should be replaced with artificial teeth, so called dentures as soon as possible, because lack of teeth would cause some bad result on the health, such as less digestion, no appetites, and those conditions would eventually bring him or her no energy, nor passion to live. Also, such lack of mouth-functions would cause troubles to jaw bone, jaw muscle, Jaw joints, also even to back bone. The good biting aliment of teeth is the basic factor for healthy lives of people. Those decayed teeth must be repaired as earlier as possible, also should be covered or replaced by artificial ones after removal of them. We would like to extend our skill and technologies to Rwanda first, then to the neighboring countries through native technicians of Rwanda. 2. The purpose of this project We would like to cultivate dental technologies of Japan, establishing co-dental 2
work by dentists and dental technicians together for sophisticated dental treatment that will contribute to total medical treatment in Rwanda. Focusing the plan to put into practice, we shall perform followings 1) Transfer our Top level technicians to Rwanda for establishing the best dental treatment level in Africa. 2) Train local people as dental technicians that will improve inter-country employment ratio and opportunities. 3) Putting the healthy dental treatment practical, it will contribute to improve people s healthy lives and longer lives in the country. 4) Rwanda, and also other African countries are improving the economy conditions better and better now, their growing economy will bring them changes of diet with more sweets that will definitely increase popularity of decayed teeth. Only with those surrounding countries already have some 200 Million people, with their change of oral environments by the economical situations, we have a prospect of potentiality that the dental treatment will be a huge business for Rwanda soon. The skill level of Japanese Dental technology Japan has been expanded the dental technology to overseas as the highest level of technology in the world. Japan started this dental technology in 1960s, the level of technology became much higher than USA and Germany, many Japanese technicians are to make inroads into foreign countries nowadays. They mostly work as instructors to train local technicians in those countries such as USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, China, then recently in Philippine, Thai, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and so on. Our member Mr. Yahagi has been Sri Lanka for a project of JICA as an instructor from a high level government school. Different from many other countries, Japan has a strict license institution for the purpose of standardizing and stabilizing the level of technicians skills that give them an exclusive occupations on the dental business. Thus the education system was designed for improvement of dental technology, and also for stable availability of those medical engineers. We believe that Japan should have a role to contribute with transferring our highly developed education systems and technologies to those newly developing countries for the purpose of health improvement, then also for their economical improvement increasing employment ratio. Background and Environment As explained above, Japanese Dental Technology and the Education system are to provide the most advanced environment in the world. One of our member, Mr. Mitsuaki Yahagi was is the highest level of educational scene in Japan for long time, he is able to get many high level co-operators from the list below that makes him a suitable member to accomplish this project. Profile of Mr. Mitsuaki Yahagi: An academic specialist of Dental Arts and Technology. Former chief instructor of Tokyo Medical and Dental University School for Dental Technicians for 27 years, educated 400 over students, also sent out 3
more than 50 technicians to overseas. He himself also worked in Sri Lanka under JICA project on their drastic Dental Education Project for University of Peradeniya for several months. He is now working as a freelance instructor of advance training for those technicians who are on businesses in town. Project Member Schools 1) Following schools attached to National Universities; Tokyo Medical and Dental University School for Dental Technicians Tohoku National University School of Dentistry Hiroshima National University School of Dentistry Also a school attached to a Private University Kanagawa University School of Dentistry Additionally to above, it is also available to send Dental technicians from private Laboratories who are in operations in town. 2) Establishment of Organization for Accomplishment 1 TechnoQuay Co., Ltd, who is on business with a foreign dental product in Japan, takes a leadership to plan and accomplish this project. 2 Form a committee to select and send instructors to Rwanda, and also for those students who come to Japan learn more advanced level. 3 This committee will be able to get a lot of support from Dental Technician School in Japan, due to relationships of Mr. Yahagi. 4 Confirm a party who accept our project and work together in Rwanda. 5 Send key persons from to Rwanda to initialize the project. 6 It may also be necessary to work with those companies who provide management and support for our making inroad to Rwanda. Steps to make the plan practical 1. Submit our proposal to Rwanda Embassy in Japan, requesting introduction of the project to Rwanda Government, and those related facilities for health, and dentistry. 2. Having approval of Rwanda government, request them to send their request to JICA in Japan to proceed. 3. Submit application form to JICA for their support. 4. Utilizing BOP business support of JICA, go for market research in Rwanda. It is necessary to investigate the situation of dental treatment in Rwanda first, for our preparations of technical level to provide and support. 1) The situations with oral hygiene and treatment. 2) The government health care with oral hygiene. 3) The circumstances and situation with dentists of the country 4) The education method of dentists, situation of dentistry in Universities. 5) The way of application for Japanese dentists to work in Rwanda. 6) The situation of dental technology business 7) The necessary size and number of Dental technicians. 8) The current situation and size of dental business, dental equipment, and dental supplies. 9) Others anything necessary. 4
Practical Development in Rwanda 1. Get a contact with the department of dentistry in universities. 2. Start a class for dental technicians in the university 3. Establish a Dental Lab in town in collaboration with Rwandan company for further business development by native people. It is necessary to rely on the role of university and also collaborations with local companies for advertisement to grow the popularity of dental technologies such as denture solutions. The Education outline of Dental technicians Invitation and Qualification of students More than 18 years old, high school graduates, selected through an entrance examination Number of student 10 students will be the initial number for the class, it will be more in a few years time. (Necessary to consider of the effectiveness of education, mediations to get their jobs, and the balance to the needs, also for the total education cost for them). Time frame and contents The 1 st year: Basic subjects Outline of Dental Technician Theory of Dental Technician Basic Technology for Dental Technician The 2 nd year: Application subject Theory of medical treatment Mechanical engineering (CAD/CAM) Business administration Technician Training (1 month), then Work as apprentices in Universities and Labs in Japan The 3 rd year: Clinical Practices Work as interns in University or Lab in Town being paid allowances for the practice and works Facilities: 1) Setup a Dental laboratory in the university for hospital. At the initial stage, let Japanese technicians to take care of Dental lab. works for their patience first, those local students will start follow up as intern after 2 years in the lab. 2) Make a class room and exercise room in the university to learn basic theories and basic exercises. 3) Establish a laboratory in town as a joint enterprise of Japan and Rwanda, make it in operation for dental business for those dental clinics in the country, and also for practices of interns. Teachers/Instructors: 1) Utilize the facility of Rwandan schools, assign local teachers or professors for general subject and theory of Dentistry. 2) For the Dental technician course, Japanese instructors and technicians are to be in-charge such as Mitsuaki Yahagi and 3 others 5
( replace in 3 months time for each). 3) Laboratory for hospital should be taken care of by Japanese technicians at the initial time for the patience. 4) Joint Lab is to be used not only for business but to lead and guide local interns for more skills and technologies, also employ then for actual works for dental clinics and hospitals. Those interns will be the local instructors for more people in the country soon. Necessary equipment and supplies: Request Japanese manufacturers for donations or to provide low cost supplies, it may also be possible to talk to local fund and government facilities. Sample models for practices: All necessary sample models of dentures and artificial teeth are to be brought in from Japan. Possibility of out-sourcing Some part of technical work need a CAD/CAM works on computers, especially this area is advances with innovations of techniques, shifting from manual work to process by machines. However, the dental works are all order made for every patience for each, strict confirmations are still needed for each steps and final checks for patience by highly trained dental technicians. The introduction of CAD/CAM will be necessary for some processes to simplify and shorten the working times effectively. Since this system is fairly expensive to purchase, it may be necessary to out-source this work from Rwanda to other countries including Japan, then with a preparation of CAD/CAM system in Rwanda someday, there will be great potentialities that Rwandan technicians will also get orders for CAD/CAM processes from other countries in the future. Wrap up: The 3 years education system for the basic dental techniques is just an initial stage, since Dentistry is advanced day by day as well as medicine. It is necessary to keep the local technicians trained and updated continuously. Our target is to provide much stronger support to Rwanda with dentistry universities in Japan, establishing a Japan-Rwanda Dental Technology Center together in Rwanda. We strongly believe that starting up this project as earlier as possible will not only establish local dental techniques earlier, but also to accelerate more employment opportunities in earlier time. That is the very best value of this project we propose to Rwanda, that will contribute with economic effects to neighbouring countries through high quality businesses from Rwanda. Your understanding of our project described above will highly appreciated, and look forward to receive a go sign from authorities. Best regards. Mitsuaki Yahagi Representative International Dental Art Katsumi Muto Representative Director TechnoQuay Co., Ltd. 6
Crown and Bridges : to be Fixed to the teeth with cement (glue) 1) Metal finish for molars 2) Uncovered 1) 3) Ceramic finished for front teeth 4) The other side view of 3) 5) Inside view of 3)
Dentures : Removable for wash and clean 6) 5 teeth denture for lower jaw 7) removed 6) from the impression mold 7) Full teeth denture for upper jaw