Rwanda joins Morocco’s hearing care program as Princess Lalla Asmaa oversees new partnership

Princess Lalla Asmaa, President of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, and Her Excellency Jeannette Kagame, First Lady of the Republic of Rwanda, launched the fifth phase of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation’s “Together, We Hear Each Other Better” program, and inaugurated the country’s first hearing diagnosis and rehabilitation center.

As an international extension of the unique national “Nasmaa” campaign, the “Together, We Hear Each Other Better” program is part of the African Vision of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God assist Him, based on promoting solidarity-driven and proactive South-South cooperation, the sharing of experiences, and co-development among brotherly and friendly nations.

Rwanda thus becomes the 23rd country to join the “Together, We Hear Each Other Better” program, which is active in Africa, the MENA region, and Latin America, and has provided care to nearly 500 patients.

Upon their arrival at Rwanda’s leading military and teaching hospital, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Asmaa and Jeannette Kagame were welcomed by Brigadier General Dr. Eugene Ngoga, the hospital’s commander, as well as by Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana.

On this occasion, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Asmaa and the First Lady of Rwanda visited four Rwandan children who had undergone surgery as part of this medical-humanitarian mission, an initiative that reflects the special attention Her Royal Highness continues to give, in accordance with the High Royal Guidelines, to supporting the children benefiting from the Program and their families, both in Morocco and in the Foundation’s 23 partner countries, as well as Her Royal Highness’s deep conviction that care must be long-term, extending beyond the medical procedure.

Subsequently, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Asmaa and the First Lady of the Republic of Rwanda inaugurated the Hearing Diagnosis and Rehabilitation Center, a gift from Her Royal Highness and the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, which provided the equipment.

The Hearing Diagnosis and Rehabilitation Center, the first facility of its kind in the country

Depending on the patient’s care journey, this new center brings together all stages of care, from the initial examination to rehabilitation.

Bringing together ENT doctors, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and psychologists, the Center has been equipped with all the necessary medical equipment, including a soundproof booth, audiometers, devices for testing infants’ hearing, as well as workstations for adjusting cochlear implants and hearing aids.

It will help make diagnoses from as early as the first few months of life, a critical period for language acquisition, and will provide follow-up care for children with implants.

At the same time, Rwandan teams received training on how to use all the equipment to ensure the Center’s independent operation.

During this fifth phase of the “Together, We Hear Each Other Better” program, 50 Rwandan patients are receiving cochlear implants and 56 others are being fitted with hearing aids. The procedures are performed jointly by the surgical teams of excellence mobilized by the Lalla Asmaa Foundation and their Rwandan counterparts.

This collaboration brings together practitioners from both countries, as well as residents in training, throughout all stages of patient care, from preoperative preparation through the surgical procedure itself to intraoperative measures to verify the proper functioning of the implant. This approach helps strengthen the skills of Rwandan hospital teams and ensures that the mission’s benefits are sustained over the long term, for the benefit of patients.

Made for people with severe to profound hearing loss for whom conventional hearing aids are insufficient, the cochlear implant consists of an internal component, placed under the skin behind the ear, whose electrodes directly stimulate the auditory nerve, and an external processor that captures and encodes sounds. It is activated a few weeks after surgery; this is followed by several adjustments and long-term speech therapy, which enables the patient to gradually begin perceiving and understanding speech.