Published: February 5, 2025
MONROVIA – Church Aid Incorporated continued its hearing and testing community outreach on Tuesday in Tubmanburg, Bomi County.
The program, which brought together hundreds of residents, saw participants screened and tested during a formal ceremony held at the Weamah United Methodist Church in Vai Town, one of two communities in Tubmanburg City, Bomi County.
Two beneficiaries of the hearing aids, 64-year-old Miama Richards and 33-year-old Ruth Wilse, lauded Church Aid Incorporated for restoring their ability to hear.
“People in my community usually mocked me, and they sometimes gossiped about us because we couldn’t hear what they were saying so easily,” Miama and Ruth explained.
In separate remarks, they expressed gratitude to Bishop Kortu Brown and Church Aid Incorporated for the hearing healthcare campaign in the country.
Speaking at the ceremony, Bishop Kortu Brown, former President of the Liberia Council of Churches and lead campaigner for promoting ear and hearing healthcare in Liberia, recalled that the initiative began with the training of four hearing instrument specialists in 2023. An additional four specialists were trained last year, bringing the total to eight. The training took place in Lusaka, Zambia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and its international partners.
He used the occasion to challenge Liberians and stakeholders to support efforts to promote hearing healthcare across the country.
Bishop Brown revealed that the Starkey Hearing Foundation, the chief sponsor of the hearing healthcare initiative in Liberia, has donated several hearing aids and approximately 18,000 batteries to Church Aid Incorporated to power the devices.
According to him, the hearing aids will be distributed to individuals with hearing problems based on recommendations from nurses to help improve their sense of hearing.
“This will not restore your hearing loss, but it will help improve your hearing ability based on screening by the hearing instrument specialists,” Bishop Brown disclosed.
He further revealed that Church Aid Incorporated plans to train about 20 hearing instrument specialists to be assigned to major health facilities across the country to address hearing loss.
According to statistics from the program held at the Weamah United Methodist Church in Vai Town, Tubmanburg City, foreign materials were removed from the ears of nine individuals.
The extracted materials included rocks, rice, and other debris.
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