| Luxembourg Vereinigung der Gehörlosen und Schwerhörigen Luxemburg a.s.b.l. Established: 1993 Full member of EUD since: 1999 Address: 164, rue de la Libération, 3512 Dudelange, Luxembourg Contact details: Email: N/A Website link: http://vgsl.hoergeschaedigt.lu
Mission statement of the organisation
Details of the Board President: Josette Santini (D) Board Members: Marlon de Bruin (D) - Tania Zens (D) - Christophe Hamer (D) - Bruna Rodrigues de Almeida (D) - Valérie Baert (D) - Jacques Bruch (HoH) - Stéphane Christnach (HoH) - Gilbert Gammaitoni (D) - Patrick Grashoff (HoH) - Patrick Kohn (D) Statistics General Population of your country? (Including hearing people): 496,000 Official or approximate figures of the number of Deaf people living in your country? 250 Official or approximate numbers of Deaf people who use sign language as their primary language? N/A How many people are members of the NAD? 122 Does your National Association of the Deaf publish any magazine or newsletters for your members? No Does your National Association of the Deaf have Youth section? No
Status of Sign Language Is Sign Language legally recognised as part of your Government's constitution? No http://www.legilux.public.lu/leg/textescoordonnes/recueils/constitution_droits_de_lhomme/CONST1.pdf Art. 29 Constitution: (Révision du 6 mai 1948): "La loi réglera l'emploi des langues en matière administrative et judiciaire." Translated: The law regulates the use of languages in administrative and judicial matters. Law: Loi du 24 février 1984 sur le régime des langues, see http://www.legilux.public.lu/leg/a/archives/1984/0016/a016.pdf#page=6 The national language is Luxemburgish. The legislation language is French; acts may be translated into German or Luxemburgish but only French texts of acts are official legal texts. Administrative and judicial languages are French, German and Luxemburgish.
Is there any campaign to get Sign Language legally recognised? The Constitution states: ‘The law regulates...'; this means that only the Parliament has the right to create or modify laws based on the Constitution with a quorum of two-thirds of all members of Parliament (first vote in presence of two-thirds of deputies, then a second vote must take place: either the deputies in the Parliament vote or a referendum can take place if demanded by 25 % of deputies or if a minimum of 25,000 voters signed a petition). Before 1948 French and German were official languages according to the Constitution; this meant that all Acts were published in both languages and each citizen could choose freely in which language s/he wanted to read an Act. In a referendum during the nazi occupation, nearly 99% of Luxemburgers voted for ‘Luxemburgish' as the official language: as the people's language and as national language. According to the result of the referendum of 1941 the article 29 of the Constitution was modified in 1948, but it took 26 years to create a Language Act because Luxemburgish was not systematically researched before World War II. Luxemburgish was researched and developed after World War II as more immigrants came to Luxemburg and asked for Luxemburgish courses. It is very hard to promote Sign Language in the Constitution as the Deaf population forms a very small minority of the Luxemburgish population.
Status of Sign Language Interpreters Approximate number of qualified sign language interpreters: 1 Details of training centre/courses: The Solidarität mit Hörgeschädigten (http//www.hoergeschaedigt.lu) offers Sign Language courses in DGS (German Sign Language) for both beginners and advanced signers.
Technology Does your country provide Video Interpreting Service? No If not, when will it be implemented? There are not plans yet to implement it yet.
Deaf centre/clubs How many deaf centres/clubs? 3 Details of the deaf centre/clubs: VGSL: http://vgsl.hoergschaedigt.lu Daaflux: http://www.daaflux.lu CI users: http://laci.hoergschaedigt.lu
Universities/Sign Language Units Are there any Universities that deal with Sign Language? (Deaf Studies, Linguistics, Interpreting): No
Deaf Schools Number of Deaf Schools: 1, see: http://www.restena.lu/logo/ Education method (Sign Language, Oral or other methods): Sign Language and Oral
History of the NAD The VGSL was founded in 1993 on the basis of a statute because before there were different attemps to create Deaf associations during the 40 years before 1993, but always without a basis of a statute and without fixed regulations and rules. Such associations were built on sand. The VGSL was the first Deaf association created after World War II on the basis of a statute and shows now to be a relatively stable association. Before World War II there was one Deaf association on the basis of a statute: the ‘Taubstummen-Sparverein' (Deaf Savings Club) during the 1930s as a possible response to the economic crisis to help the Deaf with financial matters. The VGSL was developed in the last 15 years and has been involved in the political action programme of the Ministry of the Disabled in the Ministry of Family since 1997. Contacts with the National Disability Forum Info-Handicap have been established since 1993 until the VGSL became a member of Info-Handicap in 2000. Being a member of Info-Handicap it was able to send a member to the Superior Council of Disabled Persons, which consults the Ministry of Family in legislation project matters. The VGSL made contact with the Ministry of Family and Disabled Persons to agree a collaboration contract to establish a social assistance service for all hearing impaired persons leaving the school Centre de Logopédie (see: http://www.logopedie.lu/). Before the establishement of this new service it was incorporated into the social service of the school, which was responsible for pupils and for adults. Now the school focuses on social affairs of pupils and students. The first social service on the basis of the collaboration contract took effect in October 2001. First contacts with young Deaf people were made during 2002 and we are hoping to include a youth section in VGSL. However, there is an independent association called Daaflux, which was established in 2003 and is not part of VGSL. The social service in charge of the VGSL must be open for all Deaf people, independent of whether persons are member of any association or not. The VGSL contributes to the creation of a new neutral umbrella organisation including itself, Daaflux and the LACI (The Luxemburgish Association of Cochlear Implant Users), which manages social services for the D/deaf. Currently the social service has three members of staff, including the first sign language interpreter. First contacts with the EUD were made during the WFD congress in Vienna in 1995; VGSL became a full member of the EUD in 1999. EUD's projects such as the campaign about the European currency EURO, the transposition of the European directive 2000/78/CE against discrimination and the ratification procedure of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities were implemented successfully. Concerning Sign Language, VGSL has been gathering information since 1993. Recognising Sign Language at a legal level is very difficult in Luxembourg taking into account the above-mentioned status of sign language and the multilingual situation of Luxembourg, which does not comprise of linguistic communities like Belgium or Switzerland, but is a country with three applied languages.
Last updated: 16 February 2010 |
