Thanks to the efforts of two major philanthropic foundations, hundreds of children and adults in Afghanistan recently received the gift of hearing.
In October of 2014, the Bayat Foundation and the Starkey Hearing Foundation joined forces to provide customized hearing aids free of charge to more than 1,700 Afghan citizens. Over the course of a three-day event, the first of its kind to take place in Afghanistan, individuals with hearing loss were fitted with hearing aids and instructed in their proper use and care by representatives from the two foundations.
Patients journeyed to Kabul from across the region to benefit from the event; recipients of the hearing aids included young people from two Kabul high schools with special programs for students with hearing loss. As a result of this unique humanitarian mission, many of the individuals fitted with hearing aids were able to hear for the very first time.
With an estimated 360 million people worldwide affected by hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization, initiatives like the Kabul hearing mission are of crucial importance in helping individuals with hearing loss in developing countries avoid lives of isolation. The Starkey Foundation provided hearing aids to over 175,000 individuals last year alone and has pledged to provide 1 million hearing devices by the end of the decade.