Helping to supply solar-powered hearing aids
Ideas
At just 18 years of age, Stanford first-year student, Grace O’Brien, is making a real difference by helping to provide hundreds of low-cost, solar-powered hearing aids to children in developing countries.
When Grace O’Brien was just 14 years old, she founded the non-profit Ears for Years, which is a charitable organization that has worked in countries as diverse as Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and Haiti. The association helps to fit solar-powered hearing aids and to educate communities about deafness.
O’Brien comes from a family with a tradition of volunteering and she became more aware of hearing and communication problems when her father suffered hearing loss. She subsequently discovered a theater camp for deaf children. “I knew it was the perfect place for me to integrate my love for theater and volunteering,” O’Brien told EcoWatch. “As I worked with the kids over the summer, I realized how important hearing aids were to the children’s ability to learn and communicate. I became more involved in the deaf community that summer, and I discovered that there are roughly 30 million hard-of-hearing children in developing countries who could benefit from a hearing aid but don’t have access to one.”
Ears for Years teamed up with the Brazilian Solar Ear, a supplier of affordable, solar-powered hearing aids with a strong social business focus. “I wanted to find a sustainable and affordable solution, so when I came across Solar Ear, I knew I had to work with them,” O’Brien explains. She is proud to be making a difference “one hearing aid at a time“.
Source: EcoWatch; Earsforyears.org
