Can you imagine losing your hearing as a child?
This is the story of our colleague, Kiggala Nalubwama Mastulah, a Ugandan woman that is now Executive Director of Uganda Federation of the Hard of Hearing. At the young age of 10, Mastulah lost her hearing, which changed her life forever. However difficult it may be for a girl to grow up in Africa, it doesn’t compare to the sufferings experienced of living with a disability. Today, Mastulah is an advocate for the hard of hearing and has the rare opportunity to push for policy change and inclusion of the disabled into community programs.
Unfortunately, her story is not unique. A staggering 60% of children that suffer from disabling hearing loss could have been prevented if family members were knowledgeable about the severity of untreated disease.
These are Not your typical storybooks
In collaboration with Texas A & M University, students of the School of Public Health have created a number of disease prevention booklets that emphasize the importance of treating diseases to avoid life altering consequences. These storybooks have been added to our YouLearn library that are available to be used by those people working with an illiterate population.
We hope that our stories will help rural women to understand not only how important prompt treatment of an illness can be, but to provide home remedies that can be used when there is no doctor available. Our primary objective is to reduce the number of children that suffer vision or hearing loss from preventable disease.