Montréal – December 2011 – One out of ten people in Québec have some level of hearing loss. In April 2011, the Fondation Groupe Forget launched the En Action sans Audition challenge to raise public awareness about the importance of hearing. Nadja and Mario Pelchat were two of the twenty performing artists from Québec who agreed to experience a simulated moderate hearing loss while performing their regular activities.
This powerful experience helped them realize just how important hearing is. For 30 minutes, they experienced what 800,000 Quebecers live with on a daily basis. Yet only 20% of people with hearing loss take concrete action to correct the problem.
With some difficulty in measuring how her voice carried and in following the tempo, Nadja—even with her hearing filters—did a great job performing Santa Claus is Coming to Town a song from her new Christmas album.
Mario Pelchat, who produces the singer’s albums, conceded that “it would be next to impossible to record under these conditions. If we have a hearing problem, we should definitely get it fixed.”
Nadja explained, “On a personal level, I would lose all the enjoyment of eating a meal with friends. During the challenge, when several people were talking at the same time, I couldn’t follow very well. I had the feeling that I was losing touch with the outside world.”
The Fondation Groupe Forget is a non-profit organization with a mission to improve life for people with hearing loss and to educate the public on the difficulties hearing loss creates for daily life.
