On May 13 at the Clínica del Pueblo of San Martín Mexicapam, CORAL presented a donation of 44 hearing aids to 30 children who traveled with their parents from all corners of the state of Oaxaca, as well as from the neighborhood of San Martín itself in the state capital, for the event.
This gift of hearing aids was made possible by a generous donation in memory of Anthony F. Triano for $ 10,000, which was facilitated by Father Scott Seethaler of Pittsburgh. The Mexican Ministry of Health also made a donation that paid for 7 of these hearing aids.
Most children were on a waiting list to receive this gift for many months. These hearing aids are incredible gifts for parents who believed their children would never be able to hear. But this is only the first step in the process, and speech and hearing rehabilitation therapy comes next. Hearing aids are not magic; once acquired lots of encouragement and stimulation is needed for a child to learn to use his or her residual hearing and thus be able to acquire spoken language. Fortunately, some of these children´s parents are participating in CORAL´s Therapy in the Home project, which trains parents who live far from CORAL´s therapy school to rehabilitate their children in their own homes and in their own communities.
CORAL is very pleased to support these families and is grateful to its donors who make it all possible! To see a local newspaper article covering the event, click here.
