Continuing to Make Connections

Sahar with her children at their new school in Sydney.

Cochlear implants remain out of reach for many patients where access to technology and healthcare is a challenge. Sahar Reiazi gives an update on her efforts to continue to source used processors and donate them through an informal global network, as well as sharing about returning back to Australia from Iran.

By Sahar Reiazi

When we moved back to Sydney, Australia, I applied to dozens of places for a job, and I’m not exaggerating when I say dozens. I applied for a position at a hearing healthcare center that is a few suburbs away from where we live, a bus ride away, and it was only three days a week which would be perfect for me since our children are still young.

Sahar and her daughter with her daughter’s artwork…

I even went as far as going to the center in person because waiting by the phone wasn’t doing anything for me. I asked the girl working there if the vacant position had been filled and she apologized and said that it was. She was so nice about it but I felt crushed because that was the job I wanted. I had fantasized about how great it would be and how much it suited my interests and situation in life.

…and with her own artwork. Sahar is a children’s book illustrator, including one about her family’s cochlear implant journey.

I eventually got hired as a crossing supervisor for school kids. They are referred to as “lollipop ladies” in Australia because the stop sign they hold up to ask cars to stop looks like a lollipop. It was a local school so I could just walk to the school every day. There was a training day held in a tall tower in the business district. When I went there, I saw girls my age working in office jobs wearing nice office apparel. I was so jealous because I love dressing professionally! The only chance I had to do so was when I was working as an online teacher for my friend Hiroko’s school for cochlear implant kids, called Anfini.

I did the training and literally 30 minutes after I got home, I received an email from the hearing center. They said the same location that had advertised a job months ago was looking for someone again. Would I be interested?

I had the lollipop lady uniform in my hand and my mobile in the other, reading the email in shock! I instantly replied yes and wrote that I had just been hired and trained to be a lollipop lady. They said they’d speed up the interview process and let me know whether I’d be hired by the end of the week.

First day of work!

So I went to the interview in my best “office clothes” and told the center manager all about my passion for people with hearing loss, the articles I wrote for Hearing Health Foundation, my children’s book, Hiroko’s school, and by the end of it she was wiping her tears. I got the job. I told the lollipop lady people how sorry I was and returned the uniform.

I am now working at the center in a position called front of house which includes mostly receptionist-type work but it also includes doing minor hearing aid repairs. We’ve even learned to program hearing aids for clients whose hearing aids have come back from repair.

Front of house duties include helping with hearing aids.

It is an absolute thrill to be in this position. I especially love the repairs. My colleagues tell me most front of house staff dislike the repairs and having to work with other people’s hearing aids (earwax and whatnot) but I love it. The audiologists I work with are super nice and my manager is a gem. On my first day at work, after I had my lunch in the kitchen with my colleagues, my manager walked in with a red velvet cake and a box of flowers singing, “Happy first day to you…” I feel extremely blessed and lucky to be going to work there. 

Being in Australia I’ve been able to continue to send used cochlear implant processors back to Iran. I have great friends and a lovely network that reaches kids in rural areas and even adults, people who have no support other than the kindness and compassion in other people. It’s a real thrill to be a part of the process.

Sahar and family are reunited with Hiroko Endo (third from left) and family, visiting from Japan, in Sydney. Both continue to be active connecting donors with used cochlear implant processors to patients who live where access to healthcare is more challenging.

Recently I helped find a used device for someone in India whose relative in Dubai contacted us through Hearing Health Foundation. I’ve also helped to find local contacts for a person who wrote from Kenya. Another person named David who lives in Texas and who read our story about Samin in Hearing Health magazine also reached out. He said he had a cochlear implant processor that he no longer uses and would like to donate it to a child like Samin who is underprivileged and in need of a device.

I reached out to my friend Soheila in Iran and she found a little boy who was searching for a device. He was from a poor family and could not afford to buy one. I told David everything there was to know about the little boy and offered to pay for postage so he could send the device to Iran. He was gracious enough to pay for postage himself. Soheila then updated me with pictures the audiologist had sent for her from the little boy wearing David’s device.

I sent a detailed update to David and thanked him from the bottom of my heart. He was so happy and said he would tell his friends that if they had devices to donate that they could contact me. 

It was all thanks to the articles we published together. We are so grateful to the Hearing Health Foundation community for being able to spread the word.

Sahar Reiazi wrote the cover story of the Spring 2021 issue of Hearing Health magazine about her family’s own journey with cochlear implants. For more about her art and books, see her website. Hiroko Endo wrote the cover story of the Summer 2022 issue.

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