Our 14 year old son, Matu is profoundly deaf. He suddenly and inexplicably lost his hearing when he was just one year old, just as he was learning to talk. He spent nearly four years of his life in a silent world, but thanks to the National Health Service in the UK, he was implanted with bilateral Cochlear Implants. Since then, Matu has excelled beyond our wildest expectations. His speech and language have progressed tremendously, and he is currently thriving in mainstream school in spite of his disability.

As we now live and work outside of the UK, we are no longer provided with any further funding, and face having to pay for all of Matu’s equipment, audiology and medical needs ourselves.

Matu’s equipment is failing. In the climate where we currently live, the humidity and heat is causing his external speech processors to work sporadically and gives Matu intermittent and inferior sound quality. In order for Matu to continue to benefit with being able to hear, we would like to upgrade him to Cochlear's Nucleus®7 Sound Processors as soon as possible so that any faulty sound he is experiencing at present does not inhibit his learning or the fantastic progress he is making at school.

I aim to raise money myself by hosting an exhibition of my photographs as well as hoping to publish my children's novel and picture books about deafness. However, as these will take time, we are kindly asking for your help too.

Matu is a very talented, extremely hard working achiever. He has a great sense of humour and is well loved. He has a promising future ahead of him and wants to be a film producer. This upgrade will provide him with much needed, improved hearing and listening and therefore he will continue to thrive.

We will be eternally grateful for any donation you can make to help our cause. Thank you.