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SA Celebs go Deaf For A Day Will you try it too?

16 April 2019

In support of World Hearing Day on 3 March, three of South Africa’s most-loved musicians challenged themselves to be ‘Deaf for a Day’ to remind their fellow South African’s that communication is the way we connect with others and it’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

As musicians, Denholm Harding of Just Jinjer, Gad de Combes of Shortstraw and Cito of Wonderboom understand the risk of noise-induced hearing loss and together with eMoyo, a mobile medical technology company, set out to challenge other musicians to experience what it would feel like to be deaf for a day.

What became immediately apparent for each of them was how disconnected they felt. Feeling misunderstood and frustrated, the celebs were grateful for their ability to hear. “Anybody can experience hearing loss,” says Cito of Wonderboom. “Look after your ears, they’re the only ones you’ve got,” he continued.

The theme for this year’s World Hearing Day, a World Health Organisation initiative, was a call to action for people to check their hearing. “Getting your hearing tested by an audiologist is a critical first step in protecting your hearing,” says Grant Slabbert, CMO at eMoyo.

World Hearing Day is an important milestone in audiology and has been instrumental in creating awareness for hearing loss. The campaigns intention is to generate ongoing awareness by challenging everyone to experience hearing loss for themselves. The response on social media has been overwhelming.

“Our campaign was aligned to this call to action and we wanted to drive the message home that early detection is the key to preventing permanent hearing loss. Getting your ears tested is easy. It’s just a matter of going to your local audiologist or phoning around to find an audiologist that uses KUDUwave™ so that they can come to you,” concludes Slabbert.