Your donation will help us create a digital resource to help parents, teachers and caregivers support children affected by hearing loss reach their full potential.
Click on the image above to watch the video.
Our vision
Using digital resources to help children with hearing loss hear and be heard.
“Even living in a rich country like Switzerland, the challenges facing children with hearing loss are enormous. Imagine the difficulties for such children and their families in less wealthy countries. Many of the 34 million children worldwide affected by hearing loss have little access to medical specialists or even basic knowledge about their condition. amplify’s mission is to use the opportunities provided by digitalization to help break barriers to knowledge sharing and create more inclusive learning experiences for these children and their families.”
Julia Carneiro, amplify's founder and chairwoman
Our challenge
Every child deserves the opportunity to realize their potential through access to education but there is a large demographic who do not have this opportunity - children with hearing disabilities.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates globally there are more than 400 million people, including 34 million children, who live with moderate to higher severity hearing loss. When undetected and not appropriately addressed, loss of hearing negatively impacts mental health, communication, speech and language development, cognition and social integration and leads to a lack of opportunities in education and employment. WHO data reveals that the overall global cost of unaddressed hearing loss is approximately $90 billion annually.
Even in developed countries with advanced health care systems, many children with hearing disabilities and their families neither benefit from best practice therapy nor have access to a single source of information with up-to-date scientific research/information, guidance and support for parents, teachers and caregivers.
Our opportunity
For newborn and young children with hearing disabilities, time is of the essence. Early detection of hearing loss with immediate therapy will help mitigate the negative impacts of hearing loss significantly. That is why raising awareness through social media campaigns and targeted initiatives with multinational corporations is key. Now is the time to leverage corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives.
Based on best practice therapy approaches and up to date scientific research, amplify will develop an online learning platform and app, which will create self learning materials such as videos, tutorials and worksheets and make these freely available.
Meet the founder & chairwoman
Julia Carneiro is passionate about creating lasting impact through diversity & inclusion initiatives. The discovery that her youngest son had severe hearing loss led to Julia becoming actively involved with the various communities supporting the hearing impaired. Through her work with these communities, she is determined to create equal opportunities and actively contributes to the awareness, inclusion and education of children with hearing loss.
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Julia is a communications and project management specialist. Having spent her career in various roles for multinational corporates, she is an expert in managing stakeholder expectations . She lives with her husband and their three children in Switzerland.
Julia Carneiro
Our Partners
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller
The “Zentrum für Gehör und Sprache” (ZGSZ) (centre for Hearing and Speech) is the competence centre for children and adolescents with hearing loss, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Based on more than 200 years of experience, the ZGSZ offers a well-established, wide range of services to support these children with their personal and identity development.
As a respected advocate for individuals with a hearing disability, the “Schweizerische Hörbehindertenverband” (Swiss Association for Hearing Impairment) Sonos has been one of the go-to resources in its field. By cooperating with an ever-growing network of member organizations, Sonos works actively towards reducing barriers that people with a hearing disability face.
The “Schweizerische Vereinigung der Eltern Hörgeschädigte Kinder” (SVEHK) (Swiss association of parents with hearing impaired children) is a community of families in Switzerland. SVEHK is well represented in all parts of Switzerland and helps parents with children with a hearing disability exchange best practices.
The Global Coalition of Parents of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (GPODHH), is a tight-knit international group of parent-led organizations whose mission is to empower families with deaf or hard of hearing children. GPODHH is committed to improving systemic protocols and practices leading to more informed choice.
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