Portland Rotary - Hearts for Hearing

The program is called Hearts for Hearing. Two members of Portland Rotary, an Audiologist and Speech Language Pathologist, husband and wife team have completed ten humanitarian trips to help the hearing impaired in the Dominican Republic. Their most recent efforts were dedicated to helping Haitian migrants and their Dominican-born descendants who work the sugar cane fields surrounding La Romana. An estimated 280,000 ethnic Haitians in the Dominican republic lack any form of identification are prevented from attending school, owning property and working outside the fields. Medical and dental services are received through the efforts of private groups such as Rotary Internatinal.*

The Rotary team brings new and used hearing aids as well as solar chargers to recharge hearing aid batteries so even the poorest of the poor will be able to afford to operate their hearing aids. They will also provide speech therapy to supplement the hearing aid fittings and distribute speech therapy materials to each nonverbal patient.

For more information contact Dr. Roger Fagan at 985 Forest Ave, Portland, Maine 04103. Or call 797-8738 or go to Hearts for Hearing.

*Rotary International is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, and help to build goodwill and peace in the world. There are approximately 1.2 million Rotarians who are members of more than 30,000 Rotary clubs in more than 160 countries. For more information, visit www.rotary.org.