South Africa: Eduplex, Centre of Excellence and Education, Pretoria.

In South Africa in Pretoria at the Eduplex School Centre, further support from Corona was also very difficult. At least we were able to ensure with a substantial donation that even when the school was largely closed, the children and their families could be provided with a hot meal every day. For the past school year, we again paid the school fees for numerous hearing-impaired black children. In all these cases, the families of these children lost their jobs because of COVID and would no longer have been able to afford the valuable special education of their hearing-impaired child!

Four hundred and fifty children of all colours and cultures, with hearing difficulties and normal hearing, are educated here using special pedagogical methods. Phonak founders Andy und Hans-Ueli Rihs provided the significant set-up financing for this project. In his opening speech, Nelson Mandela spoke of the high value of this initiative. In the early years, the majority of the activities and infrastructure were covered by the Right to Hear Foundation; the idea and the further development of the project arose from the initiative of Nico van der Merve. Founded in the year 2001.