Pooja, Rakhi and Aayush study in Roorkee School for the Deaf. They?ve had a long tiring day travelling to Delhi, but they are excited too. Just as their parents. Their father works at a petrol pump as a cleaner in Bhagwanpur, in the district of Uttar Pradesh. He hopes his children, who are all dumb and deaf, will get a new life soon. They do, when on their arrival in Delhi, they are given free hearing aids by US-based Starkey Foundation, which manufactures the gadgets. The founder and CEO of Starkey, William F Austin came to India with his wife to personally supervise the exercise of fitting hearing aids on to these children.
Shweta, another such deaf child studying in Class V and daughter of a potter in a nearby village in Roorke Deaf School is also very happy to get a hearing aid. It?s a different life altogether now for her.
According to S C Handa, an advisor to Roorkee School for the Deaf, located at IIT Campus at Roorkee, a normal human being can hear up to 70 decibels and a loss of this can be overcome with the help of a hearing aid. But these children have a loss of more than 90 decibels, which is called profound loss.
With the help of these hearing aids, they can realise sound and discriminate speech. They can also raise their awareness levels and the vibration levels can help develop speech. A pair of hearing aids costs Rs 30,000 and most of these children who are fitted with these aids come from poor backgrounds, so buying them would be way out of reach.
But now there is hope. In a two-day camp in the capital, Starkey India has fitted 700 children with their specially-designed hearing aids. Austin said: ?Starkey is blessed to be able to do such good work. I am happy to serve these children, who can benefit from our technology. This will help them grow up to be as carefree as any normal child and as independent hopefully. I hope to come to India again and serve more such children.?
The camp included more than 200 children with hearing problems and was spread over northern India, which include places like Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Nainital, Dehradun, Muzzafarnagar, Merrut, among others.
These schools were identified by Starkey India and over a period of two months, ear impressions of each child were taken which were then sent to the company headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be converted into ear-moulds.
So far, Austin has been a blessing for hundreds of children from across the globe. In fact, since 2000, the Starkey Hearing Foundation has provided more than 130,000 hearing aids to those in need around the world.
Let?s hope they carry on the good work and, literally, lend a ear to those in need.
