About NGO:
VConnect Foundation parent support group for hearing impaired children. Our mission & Vision are to create awareness about early detection & early intervention, help the needy to receive hearing aids and cochlear implants at the earliest possible and habilitate them into the mainstream by supporting them with Audiological Management and Auditory Verbal Therapy. To achieve this we have started 'New Born Hearing Screening' in hospitals in Mumbai.
Approximately 1 to 3 babies out of every 1000 babies are born with a permanent hearing loss; therefore it is imperative to screen all babies at birth. It is very essential to detect deafness, at the earliest, as babies start learning how to use sound as soon as they are born, and listening in the first months of life, prepares babies to speak. If a baby fails the screening test, they will be screened again and then if necessary, guided to undergo further diagnostic tests, which will help in early detection and diagnosis of the hearing loss. Guidance on early intervention will be provided to parents of babies who are detected to have a hearing impairment. Early intervention will help to achieve age appropriate speech, language, social and educational development. This will help make these children confident, contributing citizens of our tomorrow.

Fund Usage:

The funds received from the Marathon will be utilized for the following:

1. To enhance our New Born Hearing Screening programme by buying another Oto Acoustic Emission (OAE) equipment to screen babies for hearing impairment, training of the staff to screen babies, salary of staff salary to screen babies, this will help us to take on more hospitals for screening and we will be able to reach out to a far larger number of babies that we can screen. Cost: Rs. 7,00,000/-

2. We support families towards the cost of cochlear implants for their children who have a bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss and the only way they can hear is with a cochlear implant and adequate pre and post implant auditory verbal therapy. This will enable us to habilitate them at a young age and help integrate them into mainstream society. Cost: Rs. 12,00,000/- Total Cost: Rs.19,00,000/-

Impact:
Fatema and myself are both parents of children who have a hearing impairment, our dream has been to screen babies as early as possible and make them contributing children in society, like our own have become. We started our dream project 'New Born Hearing Screening' at St. Elizabeth hospital with a small donation that we received. We got our team in place, bought the OAE screener and our project officially started from May 2012.
The outcome of our small beginning was great, the enthusiasm from everyone including the management, the staff at the hospital and the parents that in a very short time we were encouraged to train another person to do the screening and start with 2 more hospitals i.e. Ruxmani Hospital and Wadia Hospital.
In a short span of two and a half months we have been able to screen approximately 180 babies. We have other hospitals in the pipeline and staff ready to join us in this noble cause but due to paucity of funds we are unable to move forward at the pace at which we would like.

Page Url :
http://www.unitedwaymumbai.org/ngo12_vconnect.htm

Founded Year: 2007

Cause category: Disability