Hear the world…

…make it a better place!?

That’s what Bryan Adams wants to do with his photographs at the Hear the World Ambassadors Photography Collection in Zurich this week. He’s the official photographer for Hear the World, although I must confess I thought he was the guy who sang at the end of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Apparently though, he does both!

It turns out that Hear the World is a global Phonak (Hearing aid peeps for those of you who don’t know) initiative to raise awareness about the importance of good hearing and the impact of hearing loss. The press release I found also said that 500 million people suffer from hearing loss, the discovery of which prompted me to break into another Michael Jackson song You Are Not Alone – as according to this, I am not.

I checked out Mr Adams’s photos on the Hear the World website and there are loads of famous music-related faces jumping on the bandwagon including Annie Lennox, Kelly Osbourne and Amy Winehouse… although I think the latter has a bit more to worry about health wise than going deaf.

I don’t really know what to say about this initiative to be honest – I don’t really think it’s meant to excite already-deaf people like me – more impress the importance of not damaging your hearing on peeps who as yet don’t have a hearing loss.

What did make me chuckle was the Facts About Hearing section, which was subtitled as ‘Our ears never sleep’. What part of our body, when considered individually, does sleep? If a sciencey person knows the answer please let me know, but my non-sciencey self has had a think and the brain doesn’t sleep – it’s still working away when we’re snoring, none of our vital organs sleep – well at least I hope they don’t or we’d all be dead.

For all you hearies out there though, there’s a rather interesting section called Hear the World with different ears, which allows you to listen to how people with hearing loss hear music. You can check it out at http://www.hear-the-world.com/hoeren_und_hoerverlust/hoeren_mit_hoerschwierigkeit.htm

Please let me know what you think. I am going to have a listen too – then I will be a deaf person listening to how a deaf person hears music…

Hmmmmm