Who Are We

LORM – Society for the Deafblind from year 1991 associates deafblind citizens, their family members and all the others (profesionals, volunteers and general public) interested in the issue of deafblindness.

Whom do we help?

Our services are intended for people with dual sensory impairment of vision and hearing of different degree in the whole Czech Republic, our target group are people with deafblindness.

Deafblindness is a unique disability of the concurrent hearing and visual impairment of varying degree. It causes difficulties mainly in communication, orientation and mobility, self-care and access to information. It prevents a deafblind person from full participation in society and it requires professional services, aids and adaptations of environment.

Deafblindness is congenital or acquired. Persons with deafblindness are distinguished into four basic groups:

  • Persons with simultaneous visual and hearing impairment from birth or early childhood
  • Persons blind since birth or early childhood with acquired hearing loss
  • Persons deaf since birth or early childhood with acquired visual impairment
  • Persons with acquired hearing and sight impairment during life, which has a significant functional impact

How do we help?

We offer to deafblind people following registered social services: social counseling, social rehabilitation (teaching communication, orientation and mobility with red and white cane, self-care training), guide, reading and interpreting services.

We organize a week long acitvities, regular club meetings, arts and sports competitions for persons with deafblindness and many more.

We publishes a quarterly  magazine Touches that can be ordered by potential readers in an enlarged black print, Braille, as an audio recording in MP3 format or electronically.

We collect literature on the issue of deafblindness. Our library now contains almost 800 documents and titles. Since 2007 this library is accessible to persons with deafblindness and severe visual impairment, due to the conversion of selected titles into digital form.

Where do we operate?

LORM organization has managed to build in the Czech Republic a network of basic social services for persons with deafblindness. Our counseling centers are located in Prague, Liberec, Jindřichův Hradec, Brno and Ostrava and we provide services in the City of Prague, in Central Bohemia, Liberec region, South Bohemia, South Moravia, and the Moravian-Silesian region. We commute to other regions according to the needs of deafblind clients.

What is LORM?

LORM is not just a random aggregation of several abbreviations but it is a name – a pseudonym of a deafblind poet, philosopher and journalist, native of the South Moravian town of Mikulov Heinrich Landesman (9. 8. 1821 – 3. 12. 1902), who due to persecutions used pseudonym Hieronymus Lorm.

Due to a sudden loss of hearing at the age of 15 and due to a slow worsening of his sight Hieronymus Lorm became a creator of one of the systems of hand touch alphabet of the Deafblind, so called Lorm’s alphabet. It s still in use in the Czech Republic as well as in many other countries.