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Celebrity Philanthropy News
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Black Tie International:
Sir Richard Branson
Joins Starkey Hearing Foundation
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Sir
Richard Branson observes as Bill Austin, Founder, Starkey
Hearing Foundation, and his team of audiologists fit
patients with hearing devices during the Foundation’s
first-ever hearing mission in Bushridge, Mpumalanga, South Africa |
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Starkey HEARING FOUNDATION HOLDS FIRST-EVER HEARING MISSION IN THE BUSHRIDGE AREA, MPUMALANGA PROVINCE,
SOUTH AFRICA, IN
PARTNERSHIP WITH
SIR RICHARD BRANSON
AND VIRGIN UNITE
Eden Prairie, MN (December 20th, 2011)
– Starkey Hearing Foundation, which strives to change
the social consciousness of hearing and hearing health
care, wrapped up its first-ever hearing mission in
Bushridge, Mpumalanga, South Africa last week with the
help of Sir Richard Branson and his not for profit
organization, Virgin Unite. For this first-time mission
working with Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite,
Starkey Hearing Foundation provided 490 under-served,
hearing-impaired children and adults with hearing aids
during the one-day mission at Branson’s Bhubezi Health
Clinic.
Sir Richard Branson assisted as the
Foundation’s team of audiologists and staff fit each of
the people from the community with their own
custom-mold, hearing device. “It was absolutely amazing
to watch someone hear their first sounds. Starkey
Foundation have profoundly impacted the lives of these
490 people and enabled them to live even fuller lives -
something they all deserve,” said Sir Richard Branson.
Starkey Hearing
Foundation’s Bhubezi hearing mission is one of dozens of
missions conducted each year by the Foundation both
domestically and internationally. Hearing missions are
the primary way Starkey Hearing Foundation realizes its
goal so the world
may hear. In turn, the Foundation has set a
target of fitting 1,000,000 hearing aids for individuals
in need by the end of this decade. While this is the
Foundation’s first mission in Bushridge, Mpumalanga,
South Africa, the organization has conducted several
hearing missions to the continent, including a 24-day
mission through Kisumu and Nairobi (Kenya); Kampala and
Gulu (Uganda); Ruhengeri and Kigali (Rwanda); Bujumbura
(Burundi); Pemba Island; and Zanzibar (Tanzania) earlier
this year.
The Bhubezi
Clinic is the one stop clinic for basic healthcare, TB
and HIV/AIDS care. It is an innovative public-private
partnership to tackle HIV/AIDS and improve healthcare in
the one of the most impoverished areas of South Africa.
Virgin Unite helps to incubate new “social enterprises”
that bring together our companies and partners together
to create sustainable, entrepreneurial approaches to
social and environmental issues.
Virgin Unite
focuses on entrepreneurial approaches to world issues.
Branson
and Virgin Unite are keen to work with entrepreneurial
organizations to pool their talents and experience for
good, which is what happened with the Starkey
Foundation. A group of Virgin Unite’s global guests were
also at the hearing aid fitting session and they
included the USactor Christian Slater; this group was
part of Virgin Unite’s regular “Connection trips”. The
Virgin Unite Connection Trip sees a group of global
entrepreneurs coming together to support their
initiatives, to see them first hand and experience truly
life changing experiences, as they did at this hearing
fitting clinic.
About Starkey Hearing Foundation
Starkey
Hearing Foundation is striving to foster greater
understanding among individuals and communities through
hearing care by focusing on awareness, education,
protection and treatment so the world may hear. Hearing
loss affects one in 10 Americans, and 63 million
children worldwide, yet many do not have access to the
hearing devices that can help them. From 2000 to 2010,
Starkey Hearing Foundation fit more than 500,000 hearing
aids to people in need in the U.S.
and around the world. The Foundation has grown that
commitment to more than 100,000 hearing aids annually
and is dedicated to fitting 1 million hearing aids this
decade. In addition to giving the gift of hearing
through worldwide hearing missions, Starkey Hearing
Foundation promotes hearing health awareness through the
Listen Carefully initiative and provides hearing
instruments to low-income Americans through the Hear Now
program. For more information on Starkey Hearing
Foundation, visit www.starkeyhearingfoundation.org.
About Virgin Unite
Virgin Unite is
the non-profit entrepreneurial foundation of the Virgin
Group. Founded in 2005, Virgin Unite unites people to
tackle tough social and environmental problems in an
entrepreneurial way, with the aim to help revolutionize
the way businesses, government and the social sector
work together – driving business as a force for good.
This is based on the belief that this is the only way to
tackle the scale and urgency of the challenges facing
the world today. For more information please visit
www.virginunite.com,
like us on facebook.com/virginunite or follow us on
twitter @virginunite. You can help us to screw business
as usual, as the Virgin Unite Connection Trip guests
did, by entering a global competition that looks to
generate new ways that business can be a force for good
in the world, with the chance to join Richard in South Africa on the next Virgin Unite
Connection Trip. Enter at
www.virginunite/screwbusinessasusual
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