Abstract Details

<< Back to Schedule

10/10/2015  |   11:15 AM - 12:15 PM   |  Andrew Foster Auditorium

The Hear the World Foundation, external donors and audiology service development: Lessons from Malawi

The aim of the Hear the World Foundation (HTWF) is to enable people all over the world to enjoy better hearing. Every year we receive a large number of applications for support. An essential criterion for selecting and implementing projects is sustainability. The quality of audiological care provided is a crucial element of sustainability, and attention is paid to the potential for: • High quality evidence-based practice • Longterm capacity-building • Outcome-monitoring HTWF funds some services directly, but most often works through existing NGOs. In Malawi, since 2010, HTWF has provided support for the building and equipping of the ABC Hearing Clinic and Training Center (ABC HCTC) in Lilongwe, the first purpose-built audiology facility in the country. The facility is led by Peter and Rebecca Bartlett, supported by EARS Inc, an Australian NGO. Its longterm sustainability depends upon training Malawian audiologists. ABC has trained six graduates as audiology assistants, and to provide longterm leadership HTWF is providing further funding for two graduates to undertake an Audiology MSc in the UK. In many developing countries there are multiple donors: another aspect of sustainability concerns how well these NGOs work together, and how well they work with internal bodies. In Malawi, Sound Seekers from the UK is developing a second audiology facility, in Blantyre. Also with a significant presence are CBM, SHF, and others. This raises issues of cooperation and efficient linkage between NGOs, and also with the key internal stakeholders. It is crucial that NGOs find ways to cooperate on the ground and to link effectively with internal policy-makers and practitioners. Perhaps there is a role for the Global Coalition to develop general guidelines where there are multiple NGOs in a country, all working to the same end?

• - know more about the Hear The World Foundation
• - have an understanding about audiology developments in Malawi
• -be aware of some of the issues around the in-country presence of multiple NGOs with similar aims

Presentation:
This presentation has not yet been uploaded.

Handouts:
No handouts have been uploaded.

John Bamford (POC,Primary Presenter,Author), Hear the World Foundation , john.bamford@manchester.ac.uk;
Professor John Bamford held the Ellis Llwyd Jones Chair of Audiology and Deaf Education at the University of Manchester from 1989 to 2007. Since 2008 he has an honorary chair at the University of Manchester and works part-time as an advisor for services in the UK and elsewhere. Prior to 1989 he was Head of Audiology Services at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, UK, where he specialised in all aspects of paediatric audiology. His research interests include early screening, identification and management, hearing aids, and service quality and service development in audiology. In the last ten years he has been one of a team responsible for the advent of a national programme of newborn hearing screening across England, and for the introduction of digital signal processing hearing aids and associated procedures for paediatric audiology services in the UK's National Health Service. He has recently led a team which has reviewed the role and performance of the UK's School Entry Hearing Screen, and from 2009-11 chaired a national review of audiology services in the Republic of Ireland, the recommendations from which are currently being implemented. His achievements in audiology have been marked by the award of Honorary Lifetime Membership of both the British Society of Audiology and the British Academy of Audiology, and by the American Academy of Audiology’s International Award for Hearing.