Click on the project title to view details and photos
Organization: Centre des jeunes sourds muets
Title: ear and hearing care in Rwanda
Alternate tite:
Ear and hearing care in Rwanda
Description:
ABSTRACT ON HEARING CARE PROVIDING IN OUTREACH CLINICS IN RWANDA
Over 5% of the world’s population or 430 million people require rehabilitation to address their disabling hearing loss (including 34 million children). It is estimated that by 2050 over 700 million people or 1 in every 10 people will have disabling hearing loss (www.who.int›…›deafness-and-hearing-loss)
People having hearing loss or related diseases should seek care from hearing care professionals. As everybody need good health including ears in order to hear the information around.
“Speech and Hearing”are two assets that we generally take for granted. Hearing is integrated into every aspect of life. It enables us to establish a link with the world around us helps, us to get information about signals or dangers that we may encounter and also allows us to enjoy the esthetics of life such as music and arts. But, most importantly, hearing is very vital for the verbal communication-gift only humans have.
Development and effective use of verbal communication are highly dependent on normal functioning of the hearing mechanism. Good hearing and communication are important at all stages of life.
Early detection and intervention are the main key to prevent hearing loss impairment including speech.
It is for this purpose that in Rwanda, on support of RBC (Rwanda Biomedical Center) and UNICEF, outreach clinics are being conducted in 9 districts to screen, test and fit with digital hearing aid on school or pre-school aged children with hearing loss. These activities are taking place at schools and hospitals.
Fitting.
Hearing aids work very well when fit and adjust appropriately. They amplify when we have a hearing loss to provide clarity of speech. You might find that you like one hearing aid better than another.
(Yoshinaga -Itano C,2000,Moeller MP et al, 2013) have demonstrated that children with hearing impairment receiving intervention in the first few months of their life have shown improved language development, better academic success and increased lifetime earnings. Not only that, children identified and receiving intervention early in life require less special help and services at later ages. These findings support the need for early identification of hearing impairment. Early identification of hearing impairment thus refers to the detection and diagnosis of hearing impairment at an early age or as soon as it has occurred. Neonatal screening enables hearing impairment in children can be identified as early as in the first few days of life.
They are many factors that play a role in the achievement of a child with hearing impairment. They can broadly be classified into clinical factors, family related factors and infrastructure related factors. A successful intervention program would be that which can minimize the negative factors and maximize the positive factors so that the child with hearing impairment can succeed in developing verbal language skills which are necessary for access to education.
‟Untreated hearing loss can have a devastating impact on people’s ability to communicate, to study
and to earn a living. It can also impact on people’s mental health and their ability to sustain
Relationship”. (Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General)
In Rwanda, many hearing-impaired children are not getting the hearing care they need and are
Missing out on the benefits that hearing brings to quality of life, health, and well-being.
Therefore, we encouraged parents to consult hearing care professionals for their children and babies to have hearing test early in the first days of life.
Primary site: AFR – Rwanda
Impactful Story:
Some children fitted with digital hearing aids have shown significant improvement.Their parents told us that thier children have began to speak some words and get good results at school.
General Photos
Types of Engagement:
Screening: No
Traditional media: Yes
Social media: Yes
Special needs populations:
Participation of policy makers: Yes
Participation of influencers: No