Friday 21 September was Loud Shirt Day. Loud Shirt Day celebrates and fundraises for the Cochlear Implant Programme. Some children who are deaf can benefit from cochlear implants so they can hear. Loud Shirt Day was celebrated at Kahutara School.
Olivia Clark has bilateral cochlear implants (two) and attends Kahutara School. Olivia gave a speech to her school about cochlear implants and how they help her hear. She explained how she needed surgery and a device was implanted into her head and 22 hearing electrodes placed in her cochlea. She had one implanted when she was two and another when she was four years old.
She also wears a receiver on her head which changes sound into electronic sound. She also explained about all the things she hears through her cochlear implant- birds chirping, clocks ticking, TV, her sister and Granny singing, her brother mucking around and how she can chat on the phone.
The children at Kahutara School wore their Loudest Shirts and donated $200 to the Loud Shirt Day appeal. Some of the children who wore the loudest shirts were given special mention.
Special visitors to Kahutara School that day were Corina Lawson with her 18 month old daughter Emily Robinson from Martinborough. Emily has one cochlear implant. Emily was diagnosed deaf at 7 weeks old through Newborn Hearing Screening (which was not available when Olivia was a baby). Emily has also had successful heart surgery.
In New Zealand one implant is funded by the New Zealand Government. The second needs to be funded privately at a cost of $50,000. Fund raising is underway in the South Wairarapa community for Emily’s second cochlear implant. The first fundraising event is a Dine and Dance organised by St Andrews Church on 3 November. Tickets are on sale from the Information Centre Martinborough or St Andrews Church office for $40 a ticket.
Janet Milne
