World Wide Hearing
World-Wide Hearing Care for Developing Countries
About Us
About World Wide Hearing
Who we are:
World Wide Hearing is made up of individuals and organizations who have experience in a number of complementary fields. They include noted audiologists, medical doctors, business people, educators, and leading figures in national, regional, and other global initiatives addressing issues of hearing impairment. They also include deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals and organizations that are run by and represent persons with hearing impairment.
The History of World Wide Hearing:
World Wide Hearing was founded in Geneva in 2003, when key figures and stakeholders (non-government organizations, government officials, academics, and humanitarian professionals) met to discuss the critical lack of services and provisions available to hearing impaired people in developing countries and other underserved communities. Planning concerning the mission and structure of World Wide Hearing continued, and in 2006 our organization was incorporated as a Swiss charitable association with the financial support of CBM-Germany and the Mill Neck Family of Organizations, amongst others.
The History of World Wide Hearing Foundation International:
In April 2011, an independent operating charity named World Wide Hearing Foundation International was founded in Montreal, Canada. Drawing on the experience and research of World Wide Hearing, it was created to develop projects to provide access to affordable hearing aids in developing countries. It has its own staff, board, and budget, and operates autonomously to both fundraise for projects and implement them around the world.
The WWHearing - World Health Organization Project Collaboration Agreement:
In 2006, World Wide Hearing and the World Health Organization (WHO) signed a four year official Project Collaboration Agreement. This agreement was renewed in 2010 for a second four-year period. World Wide Hearing develops projects to implement the provision of hearing aids and services in the developing countries, while WHO will take the lead to gather and disseminate information on provision and need for hearing aids and services and their economic costs, and will encourage and assist all Member States of WHO to introduce hearing health services and gather relevant data.
Board Members
Brother Andrew de Carpentier
Chairman
Brother Andrew is the Chairman and one of the founders of World Wide Hearing. For over thirty years, he has been the Executive Director of the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind Children in Salt, Jordan, an organization dedicated to the rehabilitation, education, training and employment of sensory impaired individuals. He has attended conferences and participated in training courses in Europe, North America, the Middle East, East Africa, and Asia in order to raise awareness of hearing loss around the world. Brother Andrew has served as advisor and board member for dozens of international agencies dealing with hearing impairment, sign language, audiology, and special education, including CBM–Germany and CHEF–Pakistan, and is recognized by the World Health Organization as an authority on providing assistance to the sensory impaired. For his services in the field of the development of deaf education he was made a Knight of the Netherlands in 1996.
Christian Garms
Treasurer
Christian is one of the founding members of World Wide Hearing and currently serves as Treasurer on its Executive Committee. For over twenty years, he has worked for international agencies dedicated to the prevention and treatment of blindness. In 1987, he was named Executive Director of Christoffel Blindenmission (CBM), a development organization that provides medical eye care services, offers education and rehabilitation programs for handicapped people, and works to prevent blindness and deafness. Since 1991, Christian has occupied leading positions at the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), a consortium whose goal is to raise awareness of and finance blindness prevention programs in the developing world. The global campaign “VISION 2020, The Right to Sight” was initiated and developed in 1995 under his leadership, and has since become a joint program of the IAPB and the World Health Organisation (WHO). In recognition of his work for visually-impaired and other handicapped people, Christian was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2006.
Andrew Smith
Secretary
Andrew is a founding member of World Wide Hearing and Secretary of its Executive committee. From 1996 to 2008, Andrew was responsible for the program for Prevention of Deafness and Hearing Impairment at the World Health Organization (WHO). Prior to working at the WHO, he was head of the Hearing Impairment Research Group at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He has also worked for the UK Medical Research Council in the Gambia, and for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan. Originally trained as a pediatrician in the United Kingdom and Canada, Andrew later developed an interest in international public health issues. He has been principal investigator and has provided technical advice in surveys and intervention studies on hearing impairment in developing countries around the globe. Today, he is an Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His principal interest continues to be the epidemiology and prevention of deafness and hearing impairment in underdeveloped parts of the world.
Claudio Bussandri
Executive Committee Member
Claudio is the Chairman of World Wide Hearing Foundation International, one of its founding members, and an active member of the Montreal health care and business communities. Though afflicted with severe hearing loss at a young age, its early diagnosis and continued treatment allowed him to continue his education and achieve success in the business world. He graduated with honours from McGill University with a Bachelor of Engineering in 1969, and subsequently obtained an MBA from the same university in 1976. He is the former President and CEO of McKesson Canada, the largest diversified healthcare services company in Canada. Prior to working for McKesson, he was President and CEO of Lantic Sugar Limited. Today, Claudio is a board member of several business associations and serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), a premier clinical, educational, and research-based institution.
Sue Greco
Foundation USA Board Member
Susan studied political science and art history before obtaining her M.Sc. in nonprofit management in New York. She has extensive experience in fundraising, communications, and marketing for the hearing industry. Between 1998 and 2004, Susan occupied high-ranking positions—including Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer—at The Deafness Research Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she worked on program development, delivery, lobbying, media outreach, and advocacy. In 2005 she was appointed Director of Marketing Communications of Boston Scientific Corporation’s auditory division where she orchestrated a re-branding of the entire auditory business, served as liaison with nonprofit organizations, and launched several media relations projects. Today, she continues to work as a marketing strategist for diverse enterprise-wide initiatives.
Nick Laperle
Executive Committee Member
Nick is a Montreal entrepreneur and member of World Wide Hearing’s Executive Committee. He is the founder and CEO of Sonomax, a leading company in the field of sound isolating and enhancing technologies. A University of Sherbrooke law graduate, Nick traveled extensively throughout the world before returning to Montreal to work for his family’s hearing health clinic. It was while processing worker compensation claims that he became aware of the pervasiveness of noise-induced hearing loss and decided to pioneer his own hearing health initiatives. Nick has promoted hearing healthcare throughout his career: in addition to his contributions to World Wide Hearing, he served as Chairman for the World Council on Hearing Health (WCHH) from 2004 to 2009 and currently sits on both the Advisory Board of the Hearing Foundation of Canada and the Foundation Board of the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf.
Nadeem Muktar
Executive Committee Member
Nadeem is an Executive Committee member of World Wide Hearing. He obtained his medical degree at King Edward Medical College in Lahore and his M.Sc. in audiological medicine at the University of Manchester. In Pakistan, he has been responsible for establishing numerous state-of-the-art audiology facilities, including the first temporal bone lab in the country for the training of ENT surgeons and the cochlear implant program, which is now used in cities throughout Pakistan. He successfully introduced neonatal hearing screening in private hospitals, and is actively pursuing a campaign to have it instituted in government hospitals. In addition to performing clinical work, research, and teaching, Nadeem has undertaken consultancies and missions in several South East Asian countries in order to spread knowledge of audiological techniques. Today, he is the Director and Chief Consultant Audiological Physician at the Audiology Centre in Lahore.
Ramachandra Parararajasegaram
Executive Committee Member
After obtaining his medical degree in Ceylon, Ramachandra completed his post-graduate training in the United Kingdom and was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. In 1982, he was appointed the WHO’s first Regional Adviser for Prevention of Blindness in South East Asia. Since then, he has become an international leader in the prevention of blindness. He was a founding member, and later, President of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) from 1994 to 1999. He has also undertaken numerous missions to African and South East Asian countries to introduce and teach community ophthalmology. Ramachandra continues to serve as board member for leading non-governmental organizations and has received several awards including the International Prevention of Blindness award of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Distinguished Service Award of the IAPB.
Seema Shah
Executive Committee Member
Seema is an audiological scientist currently operating a private practice in Nairobi and member of World Wide Hearing’s Executive Committee. Seema obtained her B.Sc. in audiology & speech rehabilitation at the University of Bombay and her M.Sc. in audiological science at University College London. She has worked as an audiologist at hospitals and health care facilities in the United Kingdom, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Throughout her career she has strived to implement sustainable and effective health care services in the developing world—with a special focus on African countries—and spends much of her time improving local hearing treatment infrastructure. She is a trustee of both the Hearing Conservation Council and Impact Foundation, organizations whose mandate is to develop affordable hearing services in developing countries.
Staff
Audra Renyi
Executive Director, Foundation International
Audra brings experience from the private sector and the non-profit world. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, both from the University of Pennsylvania. In the private sector, she has worked as an investment banker on Wall Street dealing with private equity firms. On the non-profit side, Audra has worked with Doctors Without Borders running the finances and H&R for a refugee hospital in Chad, served as the CFO of One Acre Fund in Rwanda, a non-profit agricultural organization, acted as Business Consultant for a microfinance organization in Kenya, and more recently, as Director of Development/Fundraising at Canada World Youth, a leading volunteer exchange organization that has sent 34,000 young Canadian volunteers to over 60 developing countries.
Stephen Potyondi
Communications and Development Officer, Foundation International
Stephen is responsible for managing World Wide Hearing’s administration, communications, and volunteer programs in North America. He holds degrees in history and philosophy from the University of Alberta and has actively worked as a writer and translator for diverse publications. His professional experience includes human resources, public relations, and program management in both the government and education sectors. Stephen lived in Paris from 2009 to 2011, where he completed his Master’s thesis on the topic of urban development and the displacement of the urban poor. During that time, he also worked at the Canadian Embassy in France as a consular agent, aiding travellers in distress and drafting emergency evacuation plans for Canadians in overseas French territories.
Joanna Anderson
Administrative Assistant
Joanna provides administrative and logistical support for World Wide Hearing's member association. She is a public sector professional with a BSc (Econ) in International Politics and History from the University of Wales and has a strong background in social policy. Joanna has held several roles in government over the past decade, including Policy Officer for the Health Department of The Scottish Government and Housing Advice and Information Officer for The City of Edinburgh Council.
