We are very glad to announce our next speaker Nicole Sibenaler. Her talk will have the title: “Why a world without signs is soundless”.
I will tell you about how I was raised and educated as a hearing impaired child in Luxembourg in the 1980ies, how I had to learn to speak without hearing myself and how I struggled to read from other people’s lips what they were saying. I suffered from the lack of a fully-fledge language to effectively communicate with people around me, but also grew and developed as a a learner and a person once I came across German Sign Language, by chance, at the age of 16. Finally I had discovered my “mother tongue”!
Nicole fought for years to ensure that German sign language was (finally) officially recognised in Luxembourg. She is chairwoman of DAAFLUX, a non-profit association for the deaf and hard of hearing in Luxembourg. In 2003, she helped to found this association in order to promote the interests of hearing impaired people in the professional and extra-occupational sectors, as well as the understanding of the hearing impaired among themselves and with non-disabled people. She offers courses in German Sign Language for everyone in the capital Luxembourg and for teachers, educators and pedagogues at the Centre de Logopédie.