The Téléthon in Luxembourg is now an important and firmly established part of the annual calendar of events for the public.
The origins of the Téléthon go back to 1986 and come from the United States. Pierre Birambeau was the first in Europe to take a close look at the experiment from across the Atlantic.
Other attempts in France had failed a few years earlier because people did not believe in the success of such a fundraising campaign for rare diseases in Europe.
The French public tv channel France 2 and the Lions Club in France, whose members volunteered to take the fundraising calls, joined forces as partners. Despite muted expectations, the French Téléthon was born one evening in December 1987. The French-European version will very quickly be more successful than the American original. As background information, one should know that the electronic counter at that time only had eight digits, so the ninth digit had to be painted by hand on the wood to show the total number of donations. It was 181.4 million French francs (€27.6 million) at the time.
In 1993, two French-Luxembourg artists who knew a relative with Duchenne myopathy in their circle of relatives approached Lucien Schweitzer. Together and inspired by the recent creation of a Téléthon in France, they wondered whether a similar initiative should not be taken in Luxembourg. Together with other partners, first and foremost the Lions Club Gehaansbierg, they were ready to organise the first Téléthon in Luxembourg in 1993. A "Centre de promesses" with four telephones collected around 700,000 Luxembourg francs (€17,500) in donations! In the meantime, since 1993, all Lions Clubs in Luxembourg have, every year, supported the cause of the Téléthon.
The donations collected by the "Centre de promesses" or through local actions in favour of rare diseases such as myopathies have confirmed every year since 1993 the generosity of the Luxembourg public and the partners of the Téléthon. The latter are always ready to invest fully in this action and have been doing so for years now with just as much heart and commitment. The last Téléthon raised more than €163,000 through donations. We hope for the same success in 2021, which is unfortunately also marked by the continuation of the pandemic.
