Johannesburg – Jacaranda FM’s Good Morning Angels has raised over R2 million this Mandela Day to assist fund life-changing cochlear implant surgical procedures for 23 hearing-impaired South Africans via former Miss South Africa Mia le Roux’s About Sound initiative.
The funds raised will allow kids and adults on the ready listing at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital to obtain the surgical procedures they desperately want, giving a lot of them the chance to listen to for the very first time, or to regain the reward of sound after shedding their listening to.
To mark Mandela Day 2026, Good Morning Angels partnered with Mia le Roux and #AboutSound, a public-private initiative working to offer cochlear implants to twenty susceptible state sufferers.
Whereas the life-changing implant gadgets had already been secured, the undertaking required funding to cowl the surgical procedures after restricted theatre capability on the hospital threatened to delay the procedures past the essential therapy window.
Mia le Roux made historical past as the primary in a different way abled participant to put on the Miss South Africa crown.
Having obtained a cochlear implant at simply two years previous, adopted by years of devoted remedy and therapy, Mia was capable of hear and develop speech.
In the present day, she has devoted her platform to championing the rights of the deaf neighborhood.
“I’m the place I’m due to the best way my village carried me and helped me get a cochlear implant,” says le Roux.
“I perceive the life-changing significance and honour to be part of this village that may assist to raise so many others.”
Cochlear implants are extremely efficient, technologically superior gadgets that may restore or present the power to listen to.
Nevertheless, the monetary barrier is immense, with a single implant sometimes costing between R400 000 and R700 000, inserting the therapy past the attain of most South African households.
In a rare act of collaboration, The Ear & Eye Clinic in Meyersdal dedicated to performing three cochlear implant surgical procedures every month at a considerably diminished fee, decreasing surgical prices by roughly 80% to 85%.
This introduced the common price per surgical procedure right down to R100 000 per affected person for this particular undertaking, making it doable to assist considerably extra sufferers.
The primary three younger sufferers to obtain their life-changing operations on 23 July 2026 are Abdullah Myles (one 12 months and 4 months previous), Amukelo Baloyi (two years previous) and Moloko Mokgwana (9 years previous).
The marketing campaign resonated deeply with listeners and company South Africa alike, with donations pouring in all through the morning.
Donations got here flooding in, together with:
- R100 000 from LottoStar,
- R100 000 from Sons of Thunder,
- R100 000 from Rollfab Engineering,
- R100 000 from CER Synergies and their EDI Belief,
- R100 000 from Cubed Coatings together with Superb Blanking Group,
- R300 000 from The Bare Distinction,
- R300 000, nameless donation
- R400 000 from GHH Mining Komatsu and
- R500 000 from the Absa Charity Golf Day.
The Good Morning Angels Fund will contribute an additional R165 000, bringing the entire raised to R2.3 million.
This implies 23 folks will now have the ability to obtain their cochlear implants.
“For this Mandela Day, we determined to go to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg to help the many individuals ready for cochlear implants and assist give them the reward of sound,” says Martin Bester, host of Jacaranda FM’s Breakfast with Martin Bester.
“We set our goal initially at R1 million to assist 10 folks and ended up with over R2 million coming in to assist in giving 23 folks the reward of sound.
“As a radio station, Jacaranda FM is all about sound, so to have the ability to give folks the reward of listening to and alter lives in such a profound means is extremely humbling.
“It’s stunning to see the ability of this huge purple feel-good household in full pressure as soon as once more.
“Our listeners all the time go above and past, they usually’ve made this Mandela Day extremely particular.”
For Jacaranda FM, the marketing campaign carried particular significance.
As a station constructed across the energy of sound, serving to folks expertise listening to for the primary time, or regain it after shedding it, completely displays the aim that has lengthy pushed Good Morning Angels: altering lives via the generosity of South Africans.
