Hearing loss has a huge, unseen impact in both childhood and later life. For children, spoken communication and literacy development are difficult to achieve without hearing the language and conversations in their environments. For adults, hearing loss makes communication very challenging, often leading to isolation, depression and difficulties at home and work.
Make Some Noise Day will take place on Friday, 7 October, when Global Radio’s stations across the country give a voice to small charities and projects across the UK, which struggle to raise awareness. Locally, Capital East Midlands and Smooth Radio stations will be supporting The Ear Foundation and spreading the word about their work helping deaf children, teenagers and adults.
Classic FM in London is also supporting The Ear Foundation by inviting 20 year old deaf student Qais Khan from Nottingham to their London studio, as part of the Make Some Noise campaign. In the interview, Qais, who is studying Furniture and Product Design at Nottingham Trent University, tells the story of how he was born profoundly deaf, then had a cochlear implant when he was three years old and a second implant when he was 12 . Qais has two brothers, Adam, who is hearing and his youngest brother Isa, who is also profoundly deaf and had a cochlear implant when he was 10 months old.
Chief Executive of The Ear Foundation, Mel Gregory, who, along with Family Co-ordinator Suzanne Harrigan was interviewed along with Qais by Classic FM presenter Anne-Marie Minhall, says: “We are so grateful to Global for this brilliant opportunity to talk about our work on their radio stations. As well as raising money to help support the services we offer to deaf young people, we hope to reach out to help even more people with hearing loss.”
You will be able to listen to Qais’s story next week between 1.00 and 5.00pm between Monday and Friday, 3rd to 5th October on Classic FM.Global is hoping to raise in excess of £20,000 for The Ear Foundation, which will go towards supporting their Family Programme to help children with hearing loss, their parents and siblings, to make the very most of the hearing technology they use in their everyday lives.
For more information about the Ear Foundation, please click here.