天生失聪的张伟义（中）从不放弃学习。目前他正报读马来亚大学的博士学位。
听障者拥有发言权。在2008年，马来西亚颁布了“残疾人士法令”，马来西亚手语（BIM）受承认为国家的规范手语，意味着手语已被确认为一种语言，听障者也有发言的权利。
天生失聪的张伟义，不久前发给本报一封英文电邮，字里行间一一陈述听障者生活上所面临的情况，并希望自己能够成为这个弱势群体的发言人，透过与媒体合作的管道，让人们听见听障者的心声。
他写道：“I would like to take stand for them...”，为听障者争取及维持公平与合理的社会待遇，促进听障者与健听人士之间互相尊重及了解，双方一同建设伤健共融的和谐社会。再者，“Time is not waiting for us.”
用生命启发生命
就像一般的听障者或健听者一样，张伟义（31岁）一向来都认为自己是一个普通人。在18岁就读中四那年，他获得马来西亚联邦听障者协会（Malaysian Federation of the Deaf，MFD）的邀请，成为小学激励营的全国推动者之一。透过参与该项活动，他用生命来启发生命，同时也为自己开启了一道门，迈向一个新里程。
中学毕业后，他在2002年趁着进大专学院前的空挡到美国出席听障者研讨会。当时的他第一次有了“新发现”，那是他在马来西亚从未见过的情景。
原来，他看到当地有很多人使用手语，难道美国的听障者特别多？
“我询问他们是不是跟我一样是听障者？令我惊讶的是，大部分的他们都不是听障者，而是为了要与听障朋友沟通才学习手语。”
此后，张伟义积极为听障社群服务，并在YMCA负责教导马来西亚手语（BIM）。将近10年以来，他曾为多个机构服务，包括REACH集团、马来西亚听障者运动联邦协会、听障者社区服务中心、马来西亚爱滋病理事会（爱滋病醒觉运动）及儿童护救组织（性教育）。
“尽管我在这些机构贡献了时间、精力和金钱，但我还不满足于所做的一切，因为我在听障社群看不见有任何进步；因此，我决定往前迈步，提升自己的学术水平，希望借此能为听障社群带来改变。”
他完成马来亚大学（UM）语言学文学硕士学位课程后，获颁世界听障领袖奖学金到美国高立德大学（Gallaudet University）主修听障文化研究文学硕士学位课程。
与友人骑自行车在哥伦比亚特区畅游
拥有独立生活
在美国留学时，张伟义非常享受当地的听障者特权。在大学里，校方规定每位不谙美国手语的学生必须学习美国手语，以方便与任何人进行沟通。
对他而言，在美国比起在大马更能独立生活。
在大马，他必须透过家人的帮忙拨电处理个人事务；在美国，他可以使用视频转接服务拨电给餐馆、跳伞中心、无线通信公司、保险公司、朋友等等。
“视频转接服务主要是帮助听障者透过翻译员拨打电话。我们可以从视频中看见翻译员并用手语沟通，而翻译员会把我的信息传达给接听者。”
第一次到当地医院时，他起初以为必须使用纸和笔的传统方式与服务人员沟通；没想到，服务人员告诉他稍等几分钟后便安排一名手语翻译员为他服务。诸如此类的听障者特权和服务，让他在异乡的生活更便利。
依靠人处理个人事务
可是，回马后，他的生活无法像在美国一样独立。我国的手语翻译服务非常有限，令他不得不再次依靠别人的帮忙处理个人事务。
我国唯一一个有提供手语翻译服务的机构是马来西亚联邦听障者协会。根据该协会主席萨扎里表示，马来西亚联邦听障者协会获得某信托基金约180万令吉的拨款以设立一间培训中心，提供手语翻译员课程及津贴。
该培训中心的目标是在5年内培育100名手语翻译员，当时是从2005年至2010年。
2007年的预算也拨出了约1200万令吉作为马来西亚手语发展、全国政府人员手语密集课程及手语翻译员文凭课程的资金用途。
张伟义不为耳疾所困， 为听障者组织机构鞍前马后。
不同的语言需求
我国是一个多元种族、文化和语言的国家，使用的语言包括马来语、英语、华语、淡米尔语等等；可是，我国现有的大部分手语翻译员仅通晓一种语言（马来语居多），而通晓两种语言的手语翻译员目前只有两名。
张伟义指出，该两名翻译员通常是提供翻译服务的首选，而其他翻译员则需等待工作安排，有时甚至是“英雄无用武之地”。
希望提供完善的服务
“每位听障者都有不同的语言需求，然而我国多数的翻译员能力有限，无法提供完善的服务；再加上，手语翻译服务只限于工作时间，比如星期一至五从早上9时至下午5时。如果超出工作时间以外要求服务，则必须缴付额外的费用。”
“大部分听障者的工作时间通常是在早上9时至下午5时，谁会在那段时间需要手语翻译服务？在美国，我从来无需缴付一分一毫的翻译服务费用，而且在24小时都可以使用视频转接服务，因为美国有4个不同区域和轮班时间。马来西亚听障者联邦协会也有提供类似的服务，不过依然不够完善。”
最近，该协会分别在2010年和2013年获得政府的100万令吉拨款，以为听障者社群有效地提供手语翻译服务，然而有关服务却依然无法满足听障者的需求。
面对这个问题，他不禁心生疑问，既然政府提供了足够的津贴，为什么翻译服务仅限于工作时间？后来他发现，虽然马来西亚听障者联邦协会自1997年已成立，大马许多听障者也晓得它的存在，可是却没察觉该协会有提供免费的翻译服务和本地视频转接服务。
改进的建议：
有鉴于此，他希望我国听障者所面对的种种问题获改善，并列出了一些改进建议：●采用更多健听人士加入翻译团队，这有助于加强他们的优势，并提供有效率的手语翻译服务。
●手语翻译服务不应限制于工作时间。
●无论是任何时候使用网络或面对面的手语翻译服务，听障者都不应该缴付费用，因为政府已提供拨款资助。
●积极向全国的听障者宣传有关免费手语翻译服务的可用性。
●听障者应该享有个人权利向我国资讯、通讯与文化部或社会福利部作出投诉，以确保他们在社会得到公平的对待。
报道： 游燕燕 （照片由受访者提供）
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Thanks to my friends, Jonah and Woon for the translation
[English translation is available]
Have you heard, the Voice of the Deaf?
The Deaf has the right to speak out. In 2008, Malaysia officially accepted the OKU bill, BIM will be the official language of the Deaf, as if granting the Deaf the right to voice.
Born Deaf, Vee Yee, sent an English written email to Nanyang Siang Pau recently to publish his life as a Deaf person, the daily life challenges and in hope that he could make a stand and become the 'voice' for others, with the support from media, he hopes that their 'voice' would be heard, by the public.
He wrote: "I would like to take stand for them..." to fight for equality and to change the way public treats us, and also to develop a mutual understanding and mutual respect between the Deaf and the Hearing communities, therefore we could live together in a harmony and integrated society. He added, "Time is not waiting for us."
Using life to motivate lives
Like any other person, Deaf or Hearing, Vee Yee (31) has been considering himself as an ordinary person. At the age of 18, which is equal to secondary school Form 4,he got an invitation to be the ambassador for a leadership camp for primary school students offered by MFD (Malaysian Federation of the Deaf). Through this motivational program he was able to motivate others to be achievers or turn into ‘new life’ and at the same time for himself, he had open another door to start his new journey heading towards his goals.
After completing secondary school education, he took the opportunity to participate in a Deaf conference in the USA, which was his first experience and would have been never seen in Malaysia otherwise.
He saw the huge crowd was signing and communicating in Sign Language, which made him puzzled as if so many Deaf people in the USA.
“I asked them if they are Deaf, like me. To my surprise, most of them are actually Hearing; they learn Sign Language because they want to communicate with the Deaf.”
Moving on, Vee Yee continued to help the local Deaf community by serving at various NGOs, he was teaching BIM/ MySL (Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia or Malaysian Sign Language) and in10 years time, he has worked in many organizations including REACH (a community church reach out program), MSFD (Sports Federation of the Deaf), SID (Society of Interpreters for the Deaf), MAC (Malaysian Aids Council) and Children Education Program (sexuality education).
“As much as I can do and contribute my time, energy and money, I wasn’t pleased with my efforts, because I didn’t see any improvement in the Deaf community; therefore, I decided to continue my studies to gain more knowledge and hoping to bring change to the community.”
After completing Master of Arts (MA) in Linguistics from University of Malaya (UM), he was offered by the World Deaf Leaders Scholarship to Gallaudet University to complete his next MA, in Deaf Studies.
Independent Life
While studying in the States, Vee Yee enjoyed the life and privilege there. On the campus, everyone ought to communicate in American Sign Language, hearing person is advised to learn American Sign Language to enable them to communicate with the Deaf.
By giving his personal point of view, becoming independent is much easier in the States than living in Malaysia.
To support that, he explained that in Malaysia, he still needs others to help settling his personal matters by making a call using the telephone. Whereas in the USA, you could easily sign to the screen of a television or monitor as to communicate to the SLI (Sign Language Interpreter) in Sign Language and deliver the message across to the person you asked to contact with, and this is done simultaneously.
“The Relay Service is helping the Deaf to communicate efficiently and effectively through the SLI who then communicate for us, we could see the SLI on screen and he/she will speak for us.”
When he visited the hospital for the first time, he thought of bringing a pen and papers, but then the receptionist told him that the SLI is provided and will be with him shortly. It definitely made his life much easier living in a foreign country.
Relying on others for Personal Matters
When he returns to Malaysia, his lifestyle will never be the same as in the States, our SLI service is very limited and it forced him to have to rely on others to run his errands.
MFD which is the only organization in the country to provide SLI service received the government grant amounting RM1.8 million to set up a training center in aim to train 100SLI in 5 years time to provide the services and benefits to the community, it was dated in year 2005 – 2010.
The 2007 Malaysia Budget has included a grant for MFD amounting RM12 million to further the development of the program for SLI and Sign Language classes for government staffs and also creating a certified module and course for SLI.
The need for different languages
Our country is a multiracial country; therefore different spoken languages were used to communicate, for instance Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin, Tamil and so on. However, most of the SLIs only know one spoken language (mainly Bahasa Malaysia), and there are only two SLIs who know two spoken languages.
Hence these two SLIs are always on demand and top choices when it comes to interpreting services. The rest of the SLIs will have to wait to be assigned or sometimes they don’t receive any interpreting job.
Hope for a better service
“Each and every Deaf person has different need for various languages, but most of our SLIs only know Bahasa Malaysia, they are not meeting our needs, to make things worse, the interpreting service is only provided during working office hours which is from Monday to Friday, 9AM to 5PM, if the service is requested out of office hours, additional charges will be applied.”
“Most of us (Deaf) are also working at the same time, who would request for the service at such time? In America, we do not need to pay for the SLI service and we could request it anytime as it operates 24 hours and seven days a week. However the USA has four different time zones and different work shifts. Malaysia has similar service but not comprehensive.”
Recently the organization (MFD) received RM1 million from the Government from the Malaysia Budget plan in year 2010 and 2013 to enhance the interpreting services of SLI. However those services still doesn’t meet the needs of interpreting services for the Deaf community.
With the issue arising of insufficient SLI, he begins to question himself, if the Government has contributed so much why would the service be limited only during office hours? Later he realized that even though the organization has been around since 1997, the service which is free of charge and can be doing through online were not made known to the Deaf community.
Proposed improvements
To conclude, Vee Yee hopes solutions and improvements could be brought to this issues and he has a few ideas he would like to share:
- SLI service should not limit only during office hour.
- Waive all charges for SLI service either it is via Relay Service (internet) or face-to-face as it is subsidized by the Government.
- To widely promote the free SLI service to the Deaf community.
- All the Deaf should have the right to access any information, communication and cultural events or submit complaints to Social Welfare Department in order to sustain our equality in the society.
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