World Hearing Day 2019: 5 Reasons Why You Should Consider Running For Charity!

Let me start this week’s blog post by opening up this big question to you. Have you heard about World Hearing Day? Well, let me be honest with you. I had no idea that this day was such a big deal until my Mom told me about her next run. It’s a charity 5K fun run in conjunction with World Hearing Day. I had to look it up right away because it sounded interesting and alarming as well.

Apparently, World Hearing Day is celebrated on March 3 every year. They even come up with a theme every year and this year it’s all about “check your hearing” and not forgetting, the trending hashtag! On that note, this year WHO had launched a free app for you to check your hearing through the app which I think is indeed uber-cool.

Also by 2050, every one in 10 young people are prone to hearing loss. I’m sure you would have guessed the reasons already. Yup! Earphones and loud speakers are the main culprit. I’ve even spent some time reading real life stories of people who had been struggling with hearing loss and it is really sad to know that some do miss out great opportunities on educational, professional and their everyday life things just because of hearing impairment. Remember, once lost, hearing doesn’t come back!

As crazy as it sounds, you might be investing for your own hearing aids in future. You just never know when the tables turn. For my part, I’ve decided to show my support by writing about it and spread the word to more people who might be as unaware as I was before. It is totally okay to not know everything. But it is not okay when you know and yet you do nothing about it. Before you question yourself on why should you run for charity events like this, I’ve put up 5 undeniable reasons for you to jump aboard.

No 1: A chance to do charity and run – Hearing aids can be really expensive and for those who are less fortunate, that small amount of money could mean the world to them. Usually, the fees are used to cover the run and most of the profit will be donated directly to the charity. If you get a chance to do charity and better your run, why hesitate?

No 2: Run with a purpose – You can be running for the affected family members or friends or just to raise awareness and to promote ear and hearing care at the community level, just know that you are running with a purpose. Therefore, enjoy the run knowing you did something good for the day or maybe for the rest of your life. So are you convinced yet?

No 3: Local friends – My Mom has her own running buddies whom she gets to meet on events like this. Everyone is just so busy with their own life and they actually look forward to run together every single time. Let’s just say it’s more like a reunion party than a running event. Literally! They train together at times and also motivates each other to do better on every run.

No 4: Support your local community – You can’t participate in everything your local community does but when you do, you can end up with some really cool new people. I mean they all share the same passion of running or at least they are trying to get better with their healthy lifestyles. Kudos to the hospitals which has audiology and otorhinolaryngology (ORL) services and for proactively conducting the event all around Malaysia this year. They actually proved to me that my ears are as important as my eyes! Even when I’m half blind.

No 5: Make the most out of it – You can’t dream big if you don’t work for it. A small scale charity fun run like this actually prepared my mom to get fitter for her bigger running goals which was her half marathon (completed 2 so far) and the ultimate goal of conquering the big 42km. You can’t go big if you don’t start from small right? Before it was a matter of completing the run even when it was a 5km run but now she sets her own running goals. So make the most out of every run. Big or small event, they all matter. After all, charity wins in the end!