Fairfax group helps Kenyan children hear

Andrew Dickson Mungai's second trip to the United States was a whirlwind of doctors' appointments, galas, speeches and visits with new and old friends. His first was to get a life-changing procedure.

In 2007, Tomi Browne brought Mungai to the U.S. for a cochlear implant, an electronic hearing device implanted in the ear to produce useful hearing sensations for people who suffer from severe to profound hearing loss.

Mungai, now 14, lost his hearing at age 9 because of complications from meningitis, HIV and herpes.

Browne, a McLean audiologist, first met Mungai in 2005, when one of her patients, the Rev. Angelo D'Agostino, convinced her to take her family on a trip to Kenya. Physician and Jesuit priest D'Agostino, now deceased, was the founder of the Nyumbani Children's Home in Nairobi, Kenya, which was the country's first facility for HIV-positive children.

The Brownes arrived with about $50,000 worth of donated computers, medicine and school supplies they had collected from family, friends and colleagues.

When Browne met Mungai, a resident at Nyumbani, she was able to communicate a bit with him by using sign language, so "they developed a bond right away," said Sister Julie Mulvihill, one of the nuns who helps operate Nyumbani.

Teachers at Nyumbani were starting to worry that Mungai, an intelligent kid who was able to cover up his hearing loss by teaching himself to read lips, also was going to lose his ability to speak. Browne thought he would be a good candidate for a cochlear implant and began working to bring him to the U.S. for the procedure.

"He was just very special to me and we knew we had to do something," she said.

The catch was that Browne had to agree to continue to travel regularly to Kenya to make the necessary adjustments to Mungai's implant. Upon returning to the U.S., she formed a nonprofit, Heart of the Village, to raise funds to help Mungai and other Nyumbani children.

Browne now travels to Kenya several times each year to provide ear care for the children in the Nyumbani program; she left for her most recent visit earlier this month. She also arranges for audiology students and other volunteer doctors to provide care in the clinic she set up with donated equipment. The nonprofit also has set up a computer lab for the home.

In Kenya, an ear examination is not part of a regular checkup, Browne said.

"As a result, we've got a lot of kids with serious, chronic ear problems," she said. "Chronic ear infections, if left untreated, can go into something worse."