Lifestyle
Filipino culture on hearing aids: Ruzzelle Gasmen customizes accessories for hearing aids to help raise funds to purchase device
Filipino-Canadian Ruzzelle Gasmen dealt with hearing loss without hearing aids for a few years.
The 26-year-old speech-language pathologist (SLP) was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of 20 but was only able to have a pair of the device in 2020.
Ruzzelle knew how it can be difficult for other people in British Columbia to acquire hearing aids and how hard it is to live without it. Wanting to help out, she used her art and craft skills to help in raising funds for those who cannot afford to buy hearing aids.
Meet the crafty SLP
Born from her Ilocano parents, Ruzzelle was originally from Pangasinan, Philippines.
At the age of four, she bid farewell to her hometown as her mom and dad decided to move to Canada to seek better opportunities. She and her dad came together to Vancouver, British Columbia; following her mom.
Canada became her new home; it is where she spent most of her childhood, grew up, and did her graduate studies until she became an SLP. Ruzzelle has always wanted to work with kids and help them develop their speech and language, which motivated her to study speech-language pathology.
“I just really wanted a job where I could help kids learn and also combine my interest in language and communication. I really like that because I grew up in a multilingual household, like my parents spoke three languages at home, so language is always important to me and I’m really happy that I could have that as part of my career,” she told Philippine Canadian Inquirer (PCI).
But while doing her studies, Ruzzelle has faced a hurdle that affected her own communication with others.
She was diagnosed with hearing loss. It was not clear what caused it, but it was even worse in one ear. Just to be on the safe side, Ruzzelle was advised to undergo a string of tests.
“Fortunately, it’s not a tumor but that part was a little bit scary to go through,” she shared.
“I know it’s progressive, so over time it will get a little bit worse, so I have to keep being followed up,” she added.
Other than the tests she underwent, she also went through the struggles of living without hearing aids for over five years.
Ruzzelle recalled being “anxious” during those times because every time she went out and hung out with her friends, she was worried that she might not hear everything they would tell her.
“If I’m not able to hear everything, I won’t respond or I [will] get really kind of more… I feel more isolated. So there’s that part about hearing loss; it can impact people’s mental health,” she stressed.
“There’s just a lot of that stuff that goes through your head when you can’t hear everything that everybody is saying, but I think it has taught me a lot of things like self-advocacy and speaking up and trying to figure out how to work through those communication breakdowns when I can’t hear everything,” she continued.
Hearing aids brought a ray of sunshine to Ruzzelle. With it, all the sounds became clearer to her, including the kids’ voices.
“I’m really happy to have it. It really helps a lot with my work, as well as being part of the conversation with other people,” Ruzzelle expressed.
When she finally had hers, she thought of decorating it but was not sure of what design she wanted to do.
While she has yet to come up with the design of her hearing aids, Ruzzelle came across on the internet an ear cuff that some Filipinos would easily recognize.
It was the ear cuff that Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray wore during the pageant, which features the three stars and the sun’s rays in the Philippine flag.
Ruzzelle wanted to wear one, but she realized that it would not be a good fit for her hearing aids. There is also no extra room for the accessory on her ears that carries not only the device but also her eyeglasses and face mask.
But even though she scrapped the idea of buying the ear cuff, considering her already jam-packed ears, Ruzzelle could not stop thinking about the accessory.
Her alternative? Customize a hearing accessory inspired by Catriona’s ear cuff.
Her plan started off with a lot of sketches until she achieved her desired style. She then applied it to different materials she found inside her house to see if she could attach the accessory to the device.
It was a two-hour process the first time she made it, but the product of her efforts turned out successfully.
Following the ear cuff’s design and turning her hearing aid into an actual representation of a ray of sunshine, Ruzzelle let her version of the sun’s rays glint behind her ears, which she attached to the body of the device, while a star charm dangles from the hearing aid tube. Ruzzelle has been wanting to design something that is inspired by Filipino culture, hence, she was driven to make the hearing aid accessory.
“It worked out really well, it’s really lightweight and it doesn’t make any noises on my hearing aid,” she said.
Ruzzelle made the accessory only for herself and just wanted to share it with other people. She did not expect that after posting it on social media, her messages will be filled up with a lot of inquiries.
Hearing aid accessories for a cause
“Can you sell this?”; “Where can I get one?”
When more questions like these poured in, Ruzzelle finally took requests from others as well.
This may be the first time she customized hearing aid accessories, but designing stuff is not a new thing for her; thanks to her crafty mom who played a role in her interest in art.
“When I was five years old, my mom, she would make things for me by hand. She made my birthday sign, my first birthday sign here in Canada, and I think I got a lot of that from her,” she went on, “I had been making lots of crafts, like movie props. I would try to recreate [it]. All throughout elementary school, high school, and even in university, it’s something I’ve been doing on the side for close friends of mine.”
Compared to how long it took her when she first did her hearing aid accessory, Ruzzelle said it now takes her a lesser time to finish it, although there was a lot of figuring out how to use different materials for the accessories to assure that the ones she will make for others will be sturdy.
From a lively design, her next theme shifted into an unearthly one.
Ruzzelle got this idea, the wings of aswang, from the anime adaptation of the Filipino comic book series, Trese, where the heroine battles against evil creatures of the Philippine folklore, including the aswang.
“It was really nice like we never see Filipino mythological creatures in media and it was really great seeing that. I wanted to celebrate it on my hearing aids too, that’s why I made the aswang one,” she explained.
Meanwhile, her third Filipino-inspired design was a collaborative project with her friend, Raechel. This time, it was Raechel who made the hearing aid accessory that took inspiration from the Philippines’ national flower, Sampaguita.
Using small beads, Raechel created the leaves of the Sampaguita to be attached to the hearing aid, while Ruzzelle partnered it with the Sampaguita bud earrings she made using pearls and emeralds.
“We have a lot of Sampaguita plants in the house and that’s why I collaborated on that design with my friend. And the stories of the aswang that my dad would always tell me, they’re also really inspiring,” she said.
Sampaguita plants that are displayed in their house and the spooky stories she heard about the aswang were among her many sources of inspiration that are just around her.
“I always see stuff in my daily life that I’m inspired by and I know my parents, they have a lot of Filipino culture in our home here every day and so I just seek a lot of inspiration from the stories that they told me growing up and the stuff that we carried on from the Philippines here in Canada,” she narrated.
“I like to be outdoors, in nature, so a lot of my other designs are inspired by nature or mythological creatures,” she continued. Ruzzelle’s other designs include angel-like wings, snowflakes, and a mermaid’s tail, among others.
Customers could also pitch in their own ideas for the design. Ruzzelle made a nurse hat design as per the request of her customer who is a nurse and a basketball-inspired design for her other client, a young boy who really likes sports.
Most of the requests she has been getting came from the United States. As her hearing aid accessories reached another country, Ruzzelle is currently looking at how she could send over her items to other parts of the world as well.
“I think it just got word of mouth over here in North America so that’s where a lot of requests have been coming in from, but I’m happy to try and figure out how to ship internationally to people like back home in the Philippines,” she said.
When she began taking requests, Ruzzelle initially thought that it would be fun given that she loves to do arts and crafts, but over time, this initiative turned out to have a bigger cause.
Some of the proceeds she will be earning will be handed to a non-profit organization in B.C., called Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility, which runs a program for other people who cannot afford hearing aids.
“My big goal in my life would be for this to kind of spark a conversation with the British Columbia government and the Canadian government to start a national fund for hearing aids because they are not covered here. It’s different in each province of Canada; there might be some funding but where I live, it’s not covered so you pay yourself.,” Ruzzelle said, continuing, “I know this might be a big goal but I think it can be attainable because the UK, they have this available at their national health service.”
She mentioned that there were also other organizations that are appealing to their government to have hearing aid funding for British Columbians as the devices are not covered under its Medical Services Plan.
“There [are] so many people out there that these organizations are trying to help. It’s just that finding the strength and courage to continue this advocacy work because it’s going to be a long battle and it will take time for governments to change their policies,” Ruzzelle stressed.
Ruzzelle plans to take this initiative further, too. Soon, not only will there be new designs to be available, but there will also be more handmade earrings coming out.
“Not everybody has hearing aids so earrings might be a great way for people who aren’t deaf or hard of hearing to kind of learn about the initiative and also raise funds,” she said.
For those interested to purchase these hearing aid accessories, one can simply send a direct message to Ruzzelle’s Instagram account, @puzzlewithanr, where they can also find more of her crafts.
