Rinat Akhmetov Supports Children. Now I Can Hear: two years of support

The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has been helping children with hearing problems since 2007. Regular requests from parents confirmed the relevance to that end. This is why a separate project  - Rinat Akhmetov Supports Children. Now I Can Hear -  emerged in 2018. In the course of two years, 169 highly sensitive hearing aids were fitted into babies' ears.

One of those who took part in the project was little Masha Rumiantseva from Mykolaiv. This summer, the girl turns two.

"When Masha was about a year old, my husband and I began to notice: my daughter does not react when calling her name. The audiologist told me that the baby responds to sounds. This was confirmed by the Professor we addressed for advice. Mother Kataleya Vladimirovna said that he advised to install hearing aids as soon as possible.

Parents lined up for the state program. But it turned out that we will have to wait until the end of the year. But even then it would only be possible to get it fitted for one ear. The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, where the girl's mother and father turned, came to the rescue.

"Thank you very much for responding to our misfortune," Kataleya Vladimirovna said.

It is important to note that the project  Rinat Akhmetov Supports Children. Now I Can Hear expanded the scope of support. From January 2020, boys and girls all over Ukraine can get it. Previously, the Foundation provided modern hearing aids only to children living in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia Regions. The age criterion has also changed. Now children  aged under 7 can apply for participation in the project (previously – aged under 5). Families who are categorised as follows can apply for hearing aid:

- families with many children or single-parent families;

- family-type children's homes (FTCH);

- orphans and children under care;

- families with more than one critically ill child;

- families having two or more disabled members.