One happy young boy!!!!

[Pi55y]

This is a picture of one happy little boy – and the smile  on his face (and very handsome it is!) is  all thanks to the generosity and support of 3C’s supporters.

11 year old Yusuf was profoundly deaf, the little hearing he had was lost when he was only four years  old leaving him a very unhappy and very frustrated youngster . Because of this frustration he developed aggressive behaviour  which also made life very difficult for his single parent mother and his brother and sister.

Yusuf was referred to the audiologist who  recommended that he have a  hearing aid implant, which would enable him to hear again and to eventually speak.However an implant is very expensive and although there is some help from the state this does not cover anywhere near the cost of the operation and implant and there was no way that Yusuf’s family could afford this.

Dilek Dincer, the Director of FETAV (the foundation that the 3C’s legally operate under), told the 3C’s about Yusuf’s plight late last year and we agreed that we would fund the balance of the cost of the implant, which worked out around 6,000 TL.

Last Tuesday we were invited to attend Nursel Ozdemir Rehabilitation Centre in Patlangic where Yusuf now attends once a week for speech therapy as he and his family wanted to say thank you to us.

We found a lovely polite youngster  who was a real gentleman. The implant has really changed his life and his personality and he was a joy to meet. It has also changed the lives of his family. 

Yusuf  can now speak thanks to the work of the  specialist staff at the centre and to his devoted  sister who practices with him all of the time.  This will improve as the months go on and he now attends main stream school in Sedi Kemer.  Best of all he can hear the commentary when his favourite football team Fenerbaçhe are playing!!!!!







Whilst  at the centre we met another youngster that the 3C’s have recently purchased a specialist hearing aid for.  Little Muhamed  who is just 4 years old had been brought to the centre by his father to have his aid fitted for the first time.  He was crying and a very unhappy little boy as for the first time in his life  he was able to hear noise and voices and he was very frightened of this and also the feel of the aid in his ear and could not understand what was happening to him.  We are told that this is normal behaviour and that it would take time for him to get used to both the noise and the aid and that it would be introduced slowly.  However it really brought it home to us just how scary it must be for these youngsters who can hear nothing and then are suddenly plunged into a whole new world of noise that we all take for granted. 

We will keep you advised of little Muhamed’s progress over the next few months.

Finally during our visit we met another youngster,  6 year old Atlas, who already  had an implant fitted  but the two rechargeable batteries in the aid needed to be replaced. These cost 250 TL each.  We could not bear the thought that after being able to hear that he was once again plunged into a world of silence so agreed to pay for these on the spot.

The 3C’s have also recently agreed to fund aids and implants for two other youngsters and we hope to be able to continue to help children with hearing difficulties.

As these specialist aids and implants are very expensive – in the region of 4,000 TL – 6,000 TL each  - we  hope to fund some more of these aids from the proceeds of this year’s Promises Auction, the first of which takes place on Wednesday.


Note: we have permission to publish these pictures of the boys

[Jacqui Harvey]

Lovely to read and so glad the 3C's where able to help.  What a great organisation this is. 

[Highlander]

And to think that exceptional work like this is under the severest of threats because not enough people are coming forward.

A lovely, lovely thread   

[Lotty]

Wonderful and humbling.   

[Menthol]

Thank you 3Cs for helping Turkish children on our behalf.