March 12, 2019 – In recognition of World Hearing Day, specially trained staff from the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) and the Starkey Hearing Foundation treated more than 500 patients with ear-related healthcare issues in rural northern Uganda. According to the World Health Organization, 466 million people suffer from disabling hearing loss around the world. This can have functional, social, emotional, and even economic impacts on an individual, as well as on their communities. By 2050, this number is expected to surpass 900 million people.
To do our part to address this important issue, WPDI has partnered with the Starkey Hearing Foundation in northern Uganda since 2015 to provide healthcare services to people with hearing impairments through an “Aftercare program”. That initiative is operated by WPDI youths and staff who have been trained and certified by Starkey experts as technicians. They provide patients with services ranging from registration to autoscopy to hearing aid battery replacements to troubleshooting both at our Community Learning Centers on Gulu and the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement as well as in schools and out in the field.
These efforts have been remarkably successful: between January 2018 and February 2019, WPDI ToTs and staff have been able to offer treatment services to more than 6,500 patients in northern Uganda. Though it may be difficult to comprehend that wide-scale impact, it has indeed improved thousands of lives for the better. For Boniface Omara in the Lira municipality, who lost his hearing as an adult after being beaten by rebels, receiving treatment and a hearing aid meant that he could again become a teacher: “after receiving my hearing aid, I was accepted back into teaching and I was the chief investigator for the 2018 National Examinations.” Akello, a student at Lira University, had difficulty in school before receiving her hearing aid. However, she told WPDI that “I can now hear very well, my grades have improved, and I can study normally with my friends.”
In order to have an even greater impact, WPDI plans to reinforce the Aftercare program by expanding outreach efforts even more significantly to the eight districts and 30 counties of the Acholi sub-region. That way, our ToTs and staff members will be able to reach even more patients in some of the most rural parts of the country, where the need is greatest.
