Who are you trying to help? What issue are you trying to address?

The project focuses on the elderly people with disabling deafness.

There is a desperate paucity of specialist ear healthcare throughout Cambodia. AEC is the only NGO in Cambodia providing these vital services.

For elderly people, deafness is a particular problem. Most people over sixty are affected by inner ear problems. Presbyacusis is a degenerative process affecting both ears. For many older people this form of hearing loss brings anxiety, loneliness and depression. Sensorineural hearing loss may have serious effects on the individual’s ability to hear and understand speech. Hearing loss caused by presbyacusis is permanent and cannot be reversed with medicine or surgery. It can, however, be treated using appropriate hearing aids.

We want to provide hearing aid services to elderly people.

What is your project and how will it help?

The project focuses on aural rehabilitation of elderly people with disabling deafness – by the provision of a community hearing aid service, establishing self-help groups and a local domiciliary service for the elderly who are house-bound or hospitalized. Our principal aim is to restore hearing to elderly people, providing hearing impaired elderly people with greater parity in society and with a better quality of life.

We aim to liaise with local wats (Buddhist temples) which ostensibly act as community centres in Cambodia. The project will also build local capacity on educational issues concerned with hearing/deafness through raising awareness and enhancing the knowledge of elderly people and the communities in which they live.

The project will :

provide consultations for ~800 elderly people in the project period (1 year; – provide an early intervention programme in order to identify hearing loss in elderly people and fit hearing aids at the earliest possible stage.

We estimate that we will be able to provide services to a minimum of 50 house-bound or hospitalized people in the project period.

We also want to establish a minimum of 6 self-help groups in the project period

We aim to provide ear health education to ~1600 elderly people in the project period.

How can other people partner with you on your project?

- Financial support

- Provision of technical resources

- Volunteerism

Please detail the resources that you need.

Total funding for the project (one year) US$33,810

Funds/technical resources to cover:

Aural rehabilitation (hearing aid) services
Domiciliary Services for the elderly
Self-help groups for the elderly
Audiological diagnostics
Primary ear care services
Ear health education