Two out of 360 million: a history of a hearing-impaired family from Gorlovka
September 30th - International Deaf Day; since 1951 it is celebrated on the last Sunday of September. Its purpose is to inform the public about what people with hearing problems experience every day. According to the World Health Organization, there are 360 million such people in the world, 32 million of them are children.
Oksana Romanchich is a talented artist who embodies her vision of the world in paintings. A woman barely hears sounds. The main joy of her life is the little son Bogdanchik, who was born at the height of the fighting in the Donbas. About the fact that a bombardment begins and there is an urgent need to hide in the basement to save the baby a woman could guess only because the walls were trembling in the house. Life was so unbearable.
"It was very scary. I was very worried about the child. But we could not leave at once, the son was only a few days old, ” the mother of the baby says with the help of a sign language interpreter; she is a migrant from Gorlovka.
“It's hard for me to talk. It is very difficult to communicate. I do not want my son to feel the same”, Oksana admits.
Unfortunately, problems with hearing touched Bogdanchik too. Up to three and a half years he did not hear the music, the sound of the surf and the rustling of leaves. From the world of sounds, only the sound of a jet engine, the sound of a jackhammer and the howling of sirens were hearable.
“I really want my son to hear me. And taught me to hear! ”- Oksana says.
Recently, the child for the first time in his life heard how his name sound.
“For Bogdan, we picked up two super powerful hearing aids that fully compensate for hearing loss. He has every chance to learn to speak with such a hearing loss and integrate into our society of hearing”, said Alexander Ryabtsev, an otolaryngologist, audiologist.
The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation helped to acquire highly sensitive hearing aids for the boy. Mom, who is raising a child on her own, couldn't afford it.
“Thank you very much for responding to my request, for not leaving me alone with my problem,“ Oksana Romanchich said with sincere gratitude.
“The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation helps children with hearing impairments — it gives the most modern lightweight devices that help a child to hear a speech, distinguish absolutely all sounds that surround him or her” Anastasia Kladova, head of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation program, says.
Hearing aids for children is one of the areas of work of the “Targeted assistance” program of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, thanks to which more than 5800 children have already received help for treatment.
On the occasion of this date, the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation prepared a video-appeal to hearing-impaired people. We offer it to your attention.
