Editor's note: This article was written by Vanuza Ramos, contributing journalist for Ashoka Changemakers®.
A simple battery for a hearing aid costs four reais and lasts about seven days; the device itself costs 3,000 reais (about U.S. $1,750). It may seem a small price compared to the great impact these products have in the life of a deaf person, but in developing countries like Brazil, these costs exclude millions of people who are hearing impaired.
However, a major shift is underway: the social entrepreneur Howard Weinstein has developed a low-cost technology to produce solar-powered hearing aids, along with a manufacturing process that involves training and employing people with disabilities.
According to the World Health Organization there are 278 million people worldwide with some degree of hearing impairment, and 90 percent of the estimated 665,000 newborn babies who experience some kind of hearing loss before the age of three live in developing countries. These statistics illustrate how the poorest countries still need to improve their Human Development Index (HDI) to combat health problems related to social and economic environments.
Through the social business headed by Weinstein and his team, for less than 200 reais (about U.S. $115) you can purchase a hearing aid and a solar charger with batteries that last for two years. Strategies like this make it possible to solve the health problems of people experiencing poverty and exclusion. Lowering the price of equipment for the deaf not only mitigates the social exclusion experienced by deaf people in countries throughout the world, it revolutionizes their lives since, when using hearing aids, they are actually on an equal footing with others who may have access to education and work because of their hearing abilities.
Solar Ear - The project started in 2002 in the city of Otse in the Republic of Botswana, when Howard Weinstein received a job offer from a non-governmental organization in Canada, his home country. Driven by personal motives and solidarity, Weinstein moved to Africa and created the Godisa Technologies company. In 18 months, they made the first hearing aid powered by the sun.
The business’s innovation is its development of low cost, high technology hearing aids, solar chargers, and rechargeable batteries. It is a sustainable social business, recognized and honored for promoting the inclusion of deaf people around the world because it facilitates access to traditionally expensive equipment for a majority of the population that needs it.
Specialized Workforce - A key success factor for the Solar Ear Project is hiring and providing professional development for young deaf people, both for the manufacturing of equipment and spreading the word about the program among the hearing impaired population. "Deaf people have more developed motor skills due to sign language and the disability itself, so they also have a better ability to manufacture the hearing aids, which require perfect welding and sound. They have the ideal profile for this kind of work!" said Weinstein.
By only employing people with hearing loss in the business, Weinstein not only ensures the quality of the product, but the economic inclusion of people without employment opportunities. Moreover, the business proves to other employment markets that people with disabilities have skills and aptitude equally important to work in a dignified job—many times in Brazil, companies only employ people with disabilities under the law of equal opportunity (Law 8213 / 91 of 07.24.1991) and not to invest in their development or capacity.
Solar Ear has been replicated in Brazil since 2006 in partnership with the CEFAC Institute. Currently, a team of 15 young people manufacture about 750 hearing aids per month, which are exported to other countries (they cannot yet be sold in Brazil). The Brazilian team receives ongoing professional development and is responsible for training other deaf young people in India and China, which will open new offices in 2012. The experience ensures that the hearing impaired youth learn another language and visit another country, becoming bilingual in sign language. "It's amazing and wonderful how this process is important for the confidence of these young people," said Weinstein.
A Solution that Crosses Borders - Solar Ear has grandiose aims: it plans to open factories to make solar powered hearing equipment in over 15 countries, hiring two thousand hearing impaired people. The project aims to serve three million people through inclusion, especially school-age children not yet attending schools open to the entire community. Giving a youth access to a hearing aid and battery means breaking the silence experienced since childhood, thus ensuring healthy growth and equal opportunities.
From this perspective, the Solar Project Ear represents a permanent solution to a problem that affects millions of people worldwide. The project understands the challenge in an integrated way, not only focusing on the development of a device, but also creating a new system of production that transforms the entire supply chain from the moment of creation of the product. If for every disease there is the search for a solution or cure, Howard Weinstein has worked vigorously for a better and fairer world. Ideas such as his reflect the theme of the competition Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders, a project developed in partnership between Ashoka Changemakers® and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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