Little ears in Trangie have been thoroughly checked out after the Hear Our Hearts van visited town.
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The Hear Our Hearts project has been popular among a number of communities in the central west, which seeks to provide ongoing ear checks to children in the community.
The volunteer community-funded project was established by hearing support teachers who identified that regular hearing checks were not occurring in their communities and wanted to improve awareness and understanding of the prevalence and impact of Otitis Media in children across the area.
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As a result the Hear Our Heart mobile charity seeks to provide support with the identification, treatment pathway and improvement of educational outcomes for children involved.
Last week the Ear Bus performed follow up hearing testing at Tots on Temoin and St Johns to provide healthy ears and hearing loss education for the children.
Volunteer and co-director of the charity Rachel Mills said it is important to teach strategies to keep their ears healthy.
“There is no point in providing testing if staff, parents and the children don’t know and follow strategies to keep their ears healthy,” Ms Mills said.
“For the children aged 3 to 8 years our healthy ears teacher Hayley Rees taught the children the importance of clearing each eustachian tube separately for optimum middle ear function.”
Ms Mills said Years 4 to 6 had a different focus, learning about noise and hearing loss, which she said dramatically increases in those aged nine to 21 due to listening to loud music with earphones.
The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.1 billion teenagers and young adults are at risk of hearing loss due to unsafe personal audio devices and exposure to damaging levels of sound at entertainment venues.
“Up to 70 percent of time in our our project is spent on ear health education as we believe this is the key to overcoming ear problems in our community,” Ms Mills said.
The Hear Our Hearts bus project is not for profit and not government funded and relies on donations and fundraising to allow it to continue.
The project has two paid staff and is run by a dedicated committee of volunteers.
For more information visit: www.hearourheart.org/ or follow the group on Facebook.
Zaarkacha Marlan
Court and crime reporter at the Daily Liberal. Formerly the sole journalist for the Nyngan Observer, Narromine News and Trangie Advocate.
Court and crime reporter at the Daily Liberal. Formerly the sole journalist for the Nyngan Observer, Narromine News and Trangie Advocate.
