Princess Lalla Asmaa, President of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, and Rwanda’s First Lady, Jeannette Kagame, on Monday launched the fifth phase of the foundation’s “United, We Hear Better” program and inaugurated Rwanda’s first Hearing Diagnosis and Rehabilitation Center in Kigali.
The initiative strengthens medical and humanitarian cooperation between Morocco and Rwanda, with a focus on early hearing loss detection, access to treatment, professional training, and long-term support for children with hearing impairments and their families.
Rwanda becomes the 23rd country to join the “United, We Hear Better” program, which operates across Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. The initiative has provided care for nearly 500 patients through the Lalla Asmaa Foundation’s international efforts.
The program extends the foundation’s national “Nasmaa” campaign beyond Morocco and reflects King Mohammed VI’s vision of South-South cooperation through knowledge sharing, solidarity, and joint development.
Rwanda opens first specialized hearing rehabilitation center
During their visit to Rwanda’s Military Referral and Teaching Hospital in Kigali, Princess Lalla Asmaa and Kagame met four Rwandan children who underwent surgery as part of the medical mission.
The visit reflects the foundation’s commitment to supporting beneficiaries and their families beyond the surgical procedure, with continued medical and educational assistance in Morocco and its 23 partner countries.
The two officials subsequently inaugurated the Hearing Diagnosis and Rehabilitation Center, donated by Princess Lalla Asmaa and equipped by the foundation.
The center brings together the main stages of hearing care, from initial examinations and diagnosis to treatment, rehabilitation, and follow-up.
Its multidisciplinary team includes ear, nose, and throat specialists, audiologists, speech-language therapists, and psychologists. The facility has specialized equipment, including a soundproof booth, audiometers, devices to assess hearing in infants, and systems to adjust cochlear implants and hearing aids.
The center will enable medical teams to diagnose hearing impairments during the first months of life, a critical period for language development, and provide follow-up care for children who receive cochlear implants.
Rwandan medical teams have also received training to operate the equipment independently and ensure the center’s long-term sustainability.
50 cochlear implants and 56 hearing aids
The fifth phase of the “United, We Hear Better” program will provide cochlear implants to 50 Rwandan patients and hearing aids to another 56.
Moroccan surgical teams mobilized by the Lalla Asmaa Foundation will work alongside their Rwandan counterparts to carry out the procedures.
The cooperation also involves medical residents in training, who will participate in the different stages of care, from patient preparation and surgery to intraoperative tests that verify the implant’s proper functioning.
The joint approach aims to strengthen the skills of Rwandan hospital teams and ensure that the benefits of the medical mission continue long after the procedures.
Cochlear implants serve people with severe to profound hearing loss who do not receive sufficient benefit from conventional hearing aids. The device consists of an internal component placed beneath the skin behind the ear, with electrodes that stimulate the auditory nerve, and an external processor that captures and encodes sound.
Activation usually takes place several weeks after surgery. Patients then undergo successive adjustments and long-term speech and language rehabilitation to develop their ability to perceive and understand spoken language.
Morocco, Rwanda sign long-term medical cooperation agreement
The visit also included the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Lalla Asmaa Foundation and Rwanda’s Imbuto Foundation, which Jeannette Kagame chairs.
Princess Lalla Asmaa presided over the signing ceremony on Monday at the Imbuto Foundation’s headquarters in Kigali, marking a new phase in bilateral cooperation on hearing care and professional training.
The agreement was signed by Karim Essakalli, delegated president of the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, and Elodie Shami, director general of the Imbuto Foundation.
It establishes a framework for long-term cooperation to address hearing loss in Rwanda through professional training, the exchange of expertise, and sustained support for children and their families.
The partnership will give Rwanda access to Morocco’s experience in organizing comprehensive hearing care, training multidisciplinary medical teams, and developing financing mechanisms for cochlear implantation. Rather than replicate the Moroccan model, the agreement aims to share its methods while allowing Rwanda to adapt them to its own needs.
During the ceremony, Shami presented the Imbuto Foundation’s work in early childhood development, girls’ education, youth health, and economic empowerment.
Established in 2001 within the Office of the First Lady, the foundation initially focused on protecting and supporting families affected by HIV/AIDS. It now operates across all 30 districts of Rwanda through a network of community-based Imbuto Hubs, with programs that address adolescent health and mental health, early childhood development, girls’ education, and youth entrepreneurship.
Essakalli also presented Morocco’s hearing care model, which supports deaf and hard-of-hearing people from newborn screening through access to employment.
The model has attracted partnerships with institutions including the Pasteur Institute, the reConnect University Hospital Institute in Paris, the University of Montpellier, and a Chicago-based institute specializing in applied behavior analysis.
Lalla Asmaa Foundation expands its international reach
The Lalla Asmaa Foundation has expanded its hearing care programs under Princess Lalla Asmaa’s leadership, with an approach that combines early detection, free treatment, cochlear implantation, and medical and educational support.
In 2023, the foundation launched a national newborn hearing screening program. It has also provided free cochlear implants to more than 1,200 people and organized the first African Congress on Pediatric Cochlear Implantation in Rabat in December 2025.
On October 15, the foundation inaugurated Lalla Asmaa University, an inclusive institution where deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students study together alongside professionals from different fields.
The foundation’s work addresses a significant global health challenge. According to the figures cited by the foundation, 430 million people worldwide require hearing rehabilitation.
The expansion of its international program reflects its broader commitment to sharing Moroccan expertise with partner countries and strengthening South-South cooperation.
The signing ceremony brought together Morocco’s ambassador to Rwanda, Youssef Imani; Rwanda’s ambassador to Morocco, Shakilla K. Umutoni; Mohamed Methqal, director general of the Moroccan Agency for International Cooperation; and Brigadier General Fouad Benariba, head of the ear, nose, and throat department at Rabat’s Mohammed V Military Teaching Hospital, alongside Moroccan and Rwandan institutional officials.
