When her 4-year-old son was diagnosed with severe deafness and hearing loss just months after his birth, British mother Sarah Ivermee decided to change her kid’s life.
For all those familiar with the struggles of fitting a child with cochlear implants and other hearing aids, there is often a neglected issue that is the teasing or sense of alienation that children may experience as a result of being the only one in a group of peers with a hearing device.
After learning that another 9-year-old daughter of her friend did not like wearing her hearing aid because it made her feel different from her friends, Ivermee decided to design the device with nail stickers to see if it would make a difference. Seeing how much the young girl loved the pretty results, Ivermee was struck by an idea–why not help suffering children everywhere by making a simple product that would boost the confidence of children with hearing impairments?
In 2014, the mother-of-two brought that project to life when she created Lugs, a company that sells custom-made kits to decorate hearing aids and cochlear implants. The creative designs, which range from brightly colored flowers to popular superheroes, make children proud and excited to show off their unique hearing devices.
The aids designs had characters from Marvel and DC Comics as Hulk, Superman, Iron man, Batman and other Disney ones as Toy Story and McQueen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Thomas the train.
“I am so pleased every time my inbox pings and I receive a thank you email accompanied with pictures of children wearing Lugs on their hearing devices and loving them,”
Ivermee wrote in a blog post on Limping Chicken.
“Needless to say, our son Freddie reaps the most benefit from the business, as he gets to choose new designs every month, making all his hearing friends at school very jealous!”
We need more creative Mums like her. Don’t you think you too can make a difference?
