Ear Community Proudly Donates Four Bone Conduction Processors To Twins In Peru

Fabrizio and Fabiano Vega Silvestre, BMA twins, Lima, Peru.

Meet Fabrizio and Fabiano Vega Silvestre from Lima, Peru. These two, adorable little one year old twins, are busy and on the go and are excited for their vocabulary to come in so they can start communicating. However, both Fabrizio and Fabiano were born with bilateral Microtia and Atresia. Fabiano was also born with a cleft palate. Living in Peru is amazing for both Fabrizio and Fabiano, but their family has limited resources and could not afford to purchase hearing devices for the twins once discovering that insurance would not provide them. Diana Silvestre Guierrez is Fabrizio and Fabiano’s mother. Diana says that her boys have severe hearing loss and the twins “need hearing devices urgently…as they currently are banging their heads with their hands and the doctor says [it is because] they need to communicate, [but are unable to due so] due to the deep silence in their lives.”

Even though Fabrizio and Fabiano’s family struggled with finding the funding to purchase BAHAs (also known as Osseo Integrated Devices) for their sons in Peru, their Aunt, Katty Palomino, who lives in Patterson, New York wondered if there was some way she could help the twins here in the United States. Katty Palomino went on line and researched foundations that help children born with Microtia and Atresia and found Ear Community. Katty reached out to Ear Community and applied for help for her nephews.

“Ear Community is honored to have helped Katty find a way to help her nephews hear better by awarding both boys with new Oticon Medical Ponto Pro bone conduction processors, a total of four hearing devices,” says Melissa Tumblin, Ear Community’s Founder and Executive Director. Alan Raffauf, Vice President of Marketing for Oticon Medical, saw the urgency needed to help these twins hear and quickly requested that the four Ponto Pro processors be shipped to Katty in New York so she could send them on to Diana for her twins. An organization in Peru, called CPAL, heard about the help that Katty and Diana had found for Fabrizio and Fabiano through Ear Community and agreed to also donate their time and services to program and fit the processors for the twins.  Katty stated, ” Thank you very much for changing Fabrizio and Fabiano’s lives.  This is a dream come true.  Thank you very much and God Bless you always.”

While the Ear Community organization is proud to have donated Fabrizio and Fabiano’s new Oticon Medical Ponto Pro sound processors and soft band head bands, none of this would have been possible without Oticon Medical donating these amazing hearing devices to Ear Community to begin with. Oticon Medical believes in helping individuals with hearing loss so that they can live a better quality of life. Oticon Medical is a well respected international hearing device manufacturer that is a part of the “William Demant Group [which has] 100-plus years of experience in audiology and sound processing and established manufacturing and logistics infrastructure.”

A very special thank you to Alan Raffauf of Oticon Medical for donating hearing devices to the Ear Community Organization. Ear Community would also like to thank CPAL for working together with Ear Community and helping Fabiano and Fabrizio hear better and be able to experience all of the beautiful sounds in life. Thank you Katty for the passion in your heart that lead you to finding a way to help your adorable little nephews abroad in Peru to hear better.  Fabrizio and Fabiano would not be hearing today if it were not for the efforts of everyone coming together who were involved.  All of this would not have been possible if not for the community coming together, both in the US and in Peru, finding a way to get these hearing devices to Fabrizio and Fabiano.

Thank you,
Melissa Tumblin
Founder and Executive Director of Ear Community