Staffer's Passion for Sustainability Builds Bonds With Ugandan Villagers

03/09/2018

Sustainability is a passion for Catherine Keck and in January 2018, the dental assistant at Saint Louis University’s Center for Advanced Dental Education (CADE) traveled to Uganda, to build bonds with locals on the ground to address their communities' health and environmental issues through her nonprofit, Project Restore Inc. The Edwardsville native established the organization in 2007 and began working in African countries a year later.

Giving back to others has always been important to Keck, she said. In 2002, she has worked with a pediatrician at a St. Louis children’s hospital on a project aimed at combating chronic childhood malnutrition. She is now planning to donate her time working with Project Restore as well as volunteer hours at her church and at Edwardsville’s chapter of the Loyal Order of the Moose to SLU’s 200-Years-in-One bicentennial service challenge.

Keck sees the organization as a way to connect with others who are passionate about sustainability while furthering SLU’s Jesuit ideals.

“At SLU, we want to use our assets and our talents to reach out to those who need our assistance,” Keck explained, noting that she wanted to join the University seven months ago because of its mission to work globally for a better world. “I was drawn to SLU’s underlying push to have us reach out to our neighbors.”

Project Restore works to develop and implement programs that support community sustainability in the matters of clean water, education and public health. Volunteers travel with the organization to work with villages to address community-identified needs and to provide training.

During her January trip, Keck met with the leaders of the Katalemwa Cheshire Home for Rehabilitation Services and the Wakiso District Health Center of Namulonge in Uganda. The Katalemwa Cheshire Home for Rehabilitation Services works with children with mental and physical disabilities, while the Namulonge Health Center serves 43 villages and approximately 53,000 people. The facilities are located in a poor, rural area where many people are farmers.

As part of this year’s visit, Keck distributed seven examination lights and one sterilization water bath to clinic workers. The equipment was donated by CADE.

Doctors and clinic staff members needed the lights and sterilization unit because their workspace was under-equipped and they worked by the light of a single bulb in each of the clinic’s rooms. The clinical building was once part of a research center and the original construction was not built with a medical facility's needs in mind. Clinical staff members would have to hold flashlights on the patients to compensate for the inadequate lighting conditions.

“I will now be able to see properly when I am suturing a patient,” the clinic’s head nurse, Annet Sarah Malijjiom, told Keck.

Project Restore is actively seeking volunteers to provide training in specialized areas like oral health care, education, clean water management and medical training. Keck hopes to take CADE faculty members and residents on the next Project Restore Africa trip in June 2018, as the Namulonge Health Center is in critical need of training in essential dental education and dental patient care. She hopes the trip would also offer CADE faculty members and residents the opportunity to participate in a global initiative.

Working with her colleagues in Africa with Project Restore, she said, has taught her about the interconnected nature of relationships, in nature and among people, along with other lessons.

“It’s really taught me a lot of humility and a broader understanding of things I take for granted – clean water, electricity,” Keck said. “I just feel a lot more blessed.”

For more information about Project Restore, visit its website, find the project on Facebook, or contact Catherine Keck.