Since 1987, Tom Potts, friend of CPJ member Bill Stock, has provided free dental care to the poor residents of Chiapas, Mexico.  A message from Bill describing the work that Dr. Potts has done and the conditions under which the Chiapan citizens live follows.  

If you would like to make a donation to this cause, please send a check (with "for Dental Project" written on the front of the check) to:

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you can’t hit up your family and friends for some money once in awhile, what good are they?"  (I don’t know if he really said that, but he might have.)  So here I am hitting on you for a worthy cause.

A little background: My friend Dr. Tom Potts has labored at least one or two months of every year, for almost twenty years, providing free dental care to some of the “poorest of the poor”  in Mexico’s state of Chiapas —the “Mississippi of Mexico" - as Tom describes it. This is Zapatista land, recently famous for its uprising of indigenous people in the mid-nineties. The people he labors for are the Tzotziles, one of several different Indian tribes - all descendants of the Mayan - the ancients who gave us all those cool jungle ruins throughout the Yucatan peninsula. Their glory days are over, however. They now occupy remote highlands and scratch out a meager living on the poorest soils in Mexico. They are generally discriminated against by other Mexicans and the ruling political establishment. They have a long history of periodically exploding in violent rage, when they can’t take the crap of the ruling elites any more - hence the most recent Zapatista rebellion in 1994.

In the village of Chenalho there are now Indian owned businesses in town where before the uprising they were only Mexican establishments. Tom says that up into the 1960’s the Indians were not even allowed to walk on the sidewalks!  So things are improving - if ever so slowly. Tom has struggled a long time to get some continuity in dental care and that may be a reality soon. Up until now, if Tom isn’t in town the only dental care is extractions.

In 2004, I had the opportunity to help Tom expand the clinic and install some much needed equipment—an X-ray machine, a real dental chair with a light, countertops and sinks etc. Up until this time, the patients sat in a regular chair and another patient had to hold a flash light while Tom worked. By third-world standards it’s now almost “state-of-the-art”!  So folks, please help out. Your tax-deductible donation will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Bill