Students help Ghana hear
The hearts of Utah State University students and Logan residents are stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to touch the lives of children in Ghana.
“Ghana is a nation in Africa,” said Nathan Armstrong, a junior majoring in electrical engineering, intimating his knowledge on the subject.
For most students the word Ghana is a foreign word without a whole lot of meaning, but some USU’s Management and Human Resources students are making the word more personal.
Every year, students in the MHR 3110 class, a class offered by the College of Business, are challenged to come up with their own project ideas to help them better understand how the management process works as well as unite members of the community in service to others. The students are supposed to involve as many people and organizations in the community as possible.
This year, their key project is the Ghana hearing project. The group is working with local audiologist Robert Stevenson and his non-profit organization America Helps to gather resources for the hearing impaired youth in Ghana.
“One-fourth of the kids in Ghana’s deaf schools aren’t really deaf, they’re just hard of hearing. If they lived in the U.S. they’d just pop some hearing aids in their ears and they’d be just fine,” said Stevenson, chief audiologist at Bridgerland Audiology and one of the founders of America Helps. “It’s not that they don’t have hearing aids, they do, but they’re the same cost as they are here and it is difficult to afford when you’re only making $1 a day.”
The Ghana Hearing Project collects used working or broken hearing aids. These hearing aids are then disassembled and the parts are used by another company that repairs hearing aids. The company gives the group credit for the parts, which they use to purchase new hearing aids for Ghana’s children.
A hearing aid collection system has been set up around the valley with drop boxes at Lee’s Marketplace, Macey’s, Flick’s Club, the Book Table and Bridgerland Audiology. They have also coordinated with assisted living centers and mortuaries to collect any hearing aids that are broken, discarded, or no longer in use.
To date, Stevenson and the MHR students have collected more than 282 hearing aids. Batteries have also been donated by Ray-O-Vac.
The Ghana Mission has been going on for the past 5 years. The project was started when Bob Rane, one of Stevenson’s colleagues, was contacted by a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint bishop and asked to assist church members in the Ghana area. Together, Rane and Stevenson put together the first Ghana mission and the group has returned annually ever since.
“We could go anywhere we wanted, but Ghana has a constant need. The government is stable so we can go anywhere relatively safely, and we just like the people we have gotten to know there, so we keep going back to help them,” Stevenson said.
This year the group will take half a shipping container full of supplies worth $70,00.
The crew is made up of 23 people, including a number of physicians and nurses, three audiologists, five of the founders, a chiropractor and one of Stevenson’s good friends.
The group will set up the first New Born/Infant hearing-screening program at Korle Bu Medical Teaching Hospital. During their stay in Ghana, they will run four medical and auidiological clinics and fit as many hearing aids as possible. They will also train technicians to continue the work in their absence.
“We really, really need hearing aids to help the kids. They don’t have the resources and this gets them off to a good start,” said Blaire Saunders, the MHR student in charge of publicity.
Stevenson leaves for Africa the Friday before Thanksgiving and will remain there till the following Monday. Students that wish to donate hearing aids or donate money may do so Nov. 15, 16 and 17 in the TSC basement from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. or at the STAB movie night. Donations are also accepted all year long at Bridgerland Audiology at 239 S. Main in Logan.
-amcconkie@cc.usu.edu