Helping others hear the world

Times Reporter 

 

A new hearing centre in Strathmore is looking to collect your old, broken, seemingly useless hearing aids from you. Richard Zeeman co-owns Destination Hearing Clinic, located in the Valley Medical Centre. He and his company are collecting the hearing aids to donate to CV Lumina in Bali. 

“We got involved with a little school in Bali Indonesia and the school has mostly hearing impaired children,” said Zeeman.

“The problem was that there are no social programs there to cover for the hearing ids for these children so a lot of them have to learn sign language. The problem too is if they can’t hear enough before they turn roughly around 10-years-old they won’t be able to develop speech either.”

H.L. Nick Liem was born in Indonesia and had worked with Rotary International Projects in Africa to assist hearing-impaired children. Upon retiring he returned to his home country and realized the children of Bali were also in need of the same support. He recruited fellow Rotarians, who were also involved in the African Projects. Vikki MacKay, a Registered Hearing Instrument Practitioner in B.C., and Jim Renshaw, an Electronics Technician specializing in Audiometric Equipment assisted in starting a project at Lumina in Bali.  The three of them together constructed, equipped, and funded the Lumina Hearing Center.  Staff was recruited and trained, and the concept was introduced through the local Rotary Clubs to the community. Zeeman was approached about three years ago to see if he could help.

Zeeman said hearing aids are collected here and then brought to Bali where they can be repaired. If a hearing aid is dead, the speaker or the microphone, any usable parts, are taken out and replace parts out of another one to make a working hearing aid. He personally joined the others in Bali to set up the repair lab, and started teaching repairs two years ago. He has since gone back and expanded on what they could do for repairs. 

“It’s just that simple really. Nobody makes any money off this, basically it’s all done at the school and basically a hearing aid that’s donated if it’s broken will help the child hear better period,” said Zeeman.

“Even if they’re broken they’re valuable. We can take a part out like a speaker or a microphone or even some wires, even the wiring helps. It’s amazing how many people you can help with something that’s (just sitting there.) It’s amazing how you can help people with something that’s of no value to one person is very important to another, it’s kind of neat that way.”

After creating Lumina it wasn’t long before a humanitarian organization, YKIP  (Yayasan Kemanusiaan Ibu Pertiwi) or the Humanitarian Foundation for Mother Earth, joined the team to help with several hearing projects. In 2009 Osa Holdings in Japan joined Lumina. Over the past few years Osa has supported Lumina and the children through cooperative development plans, which help Lumina earn money to maintain the operations in its schools and hearing programs. 

The Rotary Club of Burnaby and North Vancouver Lionsgate partnered with Liem, MacKay, and Renshaw to raise funds for the development of a Trade School for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Young Adults. 

To find out more about Lumina Hearing Center go to http://luminaabc.com. Anyone wishing to donate their old hearing aids can drop them off at Destination Hearing in Strathmore located at the Valley Medical Clinic building at 231 2 Ave.