Let me tell you a story quickly.
This is the story of 3 dudes who've been coming to Namotu for 25 years, for the waves, the climate, and the people of Fiji. One of them is a dentist back home in the US. And after about 20 years of enjoyment of the waves, they realized that their love for Fiji was going way beyond the waves & the surf only.
So they looked at how they could give back to this land that has given them so much. Being a dentist, Greg (one of the founders), realized how difficult (not to say impossible) it is for the fijians living on the islands to get any kind of dental treatment. They need to take 2 days off work, get a boat to the mainland, then taxi, then pay for the consultation, then sleep over somewhere before they can head back to the island…As a result, the dental health and hygiene here is pretty poor and a lot of the islanders suffer, often in silence, but sometimes very badly and need evacuation.
The next thing they know, they're spending all their free time and energy to raise money in the US to be able to set up a temporary dental clinic on one of the islands here. Once a year. 4 days. So they rallied dentists, GPs, & hygienists from California who all pay for their own trip, take a week off work, and donate to the association, in order to treat as many as 400 patients in 4 days (that was last year. This has been over-achieved already this week).
So in the last couple of days, I've been working with these amazing team of good hearted people who try to make a difference, at their level, with a very targetted and concrete project, that make people's life a lot healthier. I have been working alongside those guys, and tried to document this great initiative.
This week in Namotu is not your typical week of surf, sun, fish, dive, snorkel. The focus is on the people of Fiji, and that's great like that.
I'll try to share some of this work in the coming days.
Cheers
Franck
Recent Comments