Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Deafened Iraqi boy hears again with implant


This was one of those assignments which stick with you long after you shoot it. 3 year old Iraqi boy Mustafa Ghazwan lost his hearing during an American missle strike in Iraq almost two years ago.



Thanks to the help of the grassroots activist organization Ruth Group of Marin Mustafa was fitted with a cochlear implant, inserted in his ear, at the University of California-San Francisco. The implant will eventually help Mustafa regain his sense of sound.



I couldn't help but marvel taking photographs of Mustafa, who despite being in a completely foreign environment, surrounded by people he hardly knew, engaged with everyone he knew by building puzzles or drawing. I'm sure a lot of the comfort for Mustafa in his temporary home at Ronald McDonald House in San Francisco was because his father Ghazwan Al-Nadawi was always by his side. Mustafa still has at least six months to a year of therapy to go before he return home to an uncertain future. You can read the story here

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