Words: Brigid O’Connell
Photography: Jay Town

Hadiya Adam can communicate in three languages, and she has a lot to say. The bubbly four-year-old makes her point through wild hand actions and animated facial expressions.

But for the first time in her life, Hadiya now has the ability to talk after having the tracheostomy she has worn since nine months of age removed.

Hadiya was born premature at 24 weeks and three days gestation. Her father Fahmi Adam said it was the breathing tubes used to keep her alive as a newborn, which led to a childhood full of hospital admissions after her larynx was once scratched when the tubes were removed.

Hadiya has always eaten and drunk through her mouth, but she has only breathed through the hole in her neck and mouthed words in both English her parents’ East African native tongue of Oromo.

Click here to read the full story in the Herald Sun.

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