This week’s edition of CNN African Voices ChangeMakers sponsored by national telecommunications company, Globacom, will be hosting Crystal Chigbu, a Nigerian prosthetics maker and philanthropist and Tendekayi Katsiga, a Zimbabwean who invented solar-powered hearing aid with battery chargers for children with hearing defects.
A 2002 Biochemistry graduate of University of Lagos, Nigeria, Chigbu weathered the storm and successfully moved from being a mother caring for a child who was born with a congenital limb deformity to establishing a foundation which caters for deformed children. Her foundation provides artificial limbs for children whose limbs were severed as a result of health challenges.
Speaking on what motivated her, Chigbu said “seeing other children and families go through the same process without a clear view on how to adapt to the challenges of living with limb loss gave vent to the creation of Irede Foundation which has, since inception, restored hope to children living with loss of limbs by giving them prosthetics.
Katsiga on the other hand is a technology entrepreneur and the founder of Deaftronics. He developed the gadget shortly after moving to Botswana where he met a 15-year-old boy who had difficulty in communication and could not afford a functional hearing aid.
It was after this encounter that he attended a workshop in Gaborone, Botswana’ capital, where he developed the world’s first solar-powered hearing device complete with battery charger named ‘Solar Ear’.
African Voices comes up on CNN via DSTV channel 401 on Saturday at 9.30 a.m. Repeats of the edition will be aired on Sunday at 4.30 a.m., 7.30 a.m., 12.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Another repeat comes up on Monday at 4.00 a.m., while a two-part, fifteen-minute repeat will be shown on Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.45 p.m.