For the second year running, the Texas-based Hearing Aid for Latin America (HALA) joined forces with Guadalajara’s non-profit Salud, Cultura, Desarrollo y Ecología (Sacudee) to offer free services to lakeside area children and adults afflicted with hearing impairments.
The program carried out on Tuesday, October 14 at Chapala’s waterfront Malecón and inside city hall involved medical evaluations, hearing tests and the fitting of hearing aids for around 100 patients.
Local patient recruitment, pre-screening and logistics were handled by the city’s social development chief Felipe Ramirez Torres, along with DIF Chapala, the Tepehua Community Center, the Lake Chapala Society, and Jocotepec’s School for Special Children.
Founded in 2002 under the leadership of Ray Solcher, HALA periodically sends teams of audiologists,
audioprosthologists and trained assistants to Mexico, Central and South America to provide underprivileged people with free acoustic devices and the gift of hearing.
Solcher and his wife Karen, along with brothers Mark and Brad Brumback, returned to Chapala to spearhead this week’s one-day clinic.
Sacudee is an association of volunteer professionals who foster diverse health, culture, community development and ecology projects throughout Jalisco.
Last year the lakeside project was targeted toward helping children with hearing problems. This time, 40 adults and seniors were pulled into the program. Since 2009, the two groups have partnered once a year to provide testing and hearing devices to well over 1,000 needy individuals in the Guadalajara metro area and other parts of the state.