AN EAR TO ISRAEL IN AZERBAIJAN
By Karin Kloosterman

Israel 21C
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Nov 4 2009

Israeli Anat Kochva, from the Hedim Institute, helping the hard of
hearing on a special mission to Azerbaijan.A team of Israeli speech
and hearing specialists is restoring the hearing of adults and kids
in predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, far from the ears of the media.

Outside the audible range of the international media’s "ears" positive
stories are brewing between the Jewish State of Israel and nearby
Muslim countries. It’s time to turn up the volume. The latest project
takes place in Azerbaijan, where a team of Israeli specialists has
been restoring the hearing of Azerbaijani adults and children.

At the end of August, Anat Kochva and four speech and hearing
specialists from the Hedim Institute that she founded in Israel,
headed to the capital city of Baku in Azerbaijan, a country that
shares a border with Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west.

They were allotted a few hospital rooms, and using whatever equipment
they had managed to carry with them, in a short period the Israelis
saw about 150 Azerbaijanis, many of whom had been told that they might
never hear again. The Israeli team fitted 70 people with hearing aids
and pledged to return to Baku with more equipment.

For the longer-term, Kochva tells ISRAEL21c, she hopes to see a
commitment on the part of the Azerbaijan government to create training
programs so that local qualified professionals will be able to diagnose
and treat their peoples’ hearing problems: "… since it appears that
they have no plans for training programs [on how to identify hearing
problems] in small babies and children, we will come and help them
to plan an educational training system," she promises.

But Kochva doesn’t want just to provide handouts. She’s hoping
for a willing partner she can trust. "If you change programs [in
the government] you must put some efforts into local training and
education," she stresses.

Hearing their cries

In and around Baku, "We saw a very low level of knowledge of treating
problems in our field and we could only bless what we have in Israel
compared to what they have in Azerbaijan," Kochva recounts. This
applies to both services and treatment facilities for children,
and the overall approach to hearing problems, she adds.

When a problem is identified at a young age, "They isolate
children in closed schools and they don’t try to mix them with the
hearing population. And the level of services there, like hearing
rehabilitation and diagnostics at an early age, providing hearing aids
and all that is involved, including rehab, is so low. In the 35 years
I’ve been working in this field, I have never seen such low levels
[of care]," she laments.

Among those treated by her team was 16-year-old Ahmadli Nijad, deaf
since birth. Nijad was born with severe hearing problems that worsened
as he grew older. Local doctors told his family that he would never
hear, but the Israeli group proved Nijad’s doctors wrong by fitting
him with a hearing aid device that works.

The idea of helping Azerbaijanis to hear was first proposed by Nati
Marcus and the government of Israel. Marcus is an Israeli businessman
who for several years has been helping people to see in developing
countries by providing free eye operations through his non-government,
non-profit organization an "Eye From Zion."

Muslims who are happy to be helped by Jews

The fact that Islam is the dominant faith in Azerbaijan (the country
is about 95 percent Muslim), doesn’t seem to weigh heavily on those
coming to the Jewish Israelis for help, says Kochva. "Everybody was
very positive [about the visit] because they wanted the help from us,"
she says, noting that a number of the patients they treated spoke
about their relationships with Jews.

This was especially true of those who came from Kuba, a city once
known as the ‘Jerusalem of Kavkaz’ that still has a Jewish population
numbering a few thousand. Today, most of its Jews have immigrated to
Israel, but they still maintain contact with their families, Kochva
discovered: "I heard about people having good relationships with the
Jews. They showed us how they loved the Jewish community and we got
the feeling that there were no separate rules between the Muslims
and the Jews."

The journey to Azerbaijan was a joint mission that included
representatives from Magan David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red
Cross. Two Israelis from that organization came along to teach the
Azerbaijani version of the organization, the Red Crescent.

It was not the emergency team’s first meeting with the Azerbaijanis
and it took place following President Shimon Peres’ recent visit to
this secular country that has expressed an interest in improving its
relations with Israel. Working together on an emergency medical center
in a Muslim community is one of the new projects in the pipeline.

An ear to the ground

Thanks to the help of a number of Jewish organizations active in
Azerbaijan, the Israeli embassy and a local Muslim-run fund, the
hard-of-hearing Azerbaijanis were made aware of the visit of the
Israeli team.

Sadly, not everyone could be treated in the first round, since the
crew came equipped with only 70 devices, but they have promised to
return. "When we were finished there we promised to come back to
bring another 30," says Kochva, who is looking forward to an ongoing
relationship with the country, despite the significant out of pocket
costs that she incurred.

According to media reports, equipment worth NIS 200,000 (about $50,000)
was brought to Azerbaijan. And that doesn’t include the cost of
flights and staffing the trip.

Born in Poland, Kochva trained as both an audiologist and speech
therapist. Her institute, Hedim, the largest chain of hearing and
speech rehabilitation clinics in Israel has been operating since 1989,
offering professional services to people with hearing and speech
difficulties all across the country.

Kochva works with products bought from the small Canadian company
Unitron, based in Kitchener, Ontario. Through Israel’s Foreign Ministry
she invited a representative of the Canadian company to join the
Israeli delegation on their mission.

Meanwhile, Kochva has her ear to the ground as she awaits further
developments. In a country that is influenced by Islamic fundamentalism
from nearby Iran, her small project could have a huge impact on global
democracy: "We are in contact and the Israeli Embassy is working on
it," says Kochva. "We hope to continue. We don’t just want to come
and go, but to see what we can build there so it can be better."