Since 2012, our small international humanitarian efforts have partnered with Rotary to provide much needed dental care to K-6 grade children in rural villages of Ecuador and Grenada West Indies. The funds form District Grants have helped in the purchase of dental supplies and portable equipment that we take to different schools. Our project now extends to 2 weeks, averaging over 1000 hours of volunteer time per trip. In 2020 we formed a non-profit, Spice Isle Smiles. The broad mission statement of this organization includes literacy efforts. Our October 2022 humanitarian project will see those literacy efforts in action. One of our volunteers is a 32 year elementary school teacher who has focused on working with kids who have difficulty learning to read. We have arranged a week of in-service where she will work with teachers from the 4 different schools that participate in our dental project. She will teach learning techniques of phonetic reading and will work with a few students as well. Literacy is a global challenge and it is very sad to encounter adults who cannot read. This has negative consequences economically, socially, and health wise. This may be a drop in the bucket, but small projects bring about great change, one person at a time. We are excited to expand our humanitarian efforts in this direction.
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