“Braille is to fingers what print is to eyes” (RNZFB)
It would be very remiss if a blog entitled Low Visionary did not acknowledge the birthday of the man who was one of the initiators of accessible information, at least in hard copy. Louis Braille’s 200th birthday is being celebrated around the world this year.
A celebration in Wellington to mark his birthday drew attention to the contribution of this man from a humble background to the lives of millions of blind people.
January 4, 2009, was the 200th birthday of the creator the tactile code of raised letters and numbers and musical notation that has allowed blind people around the world to read and achieve the great gift of literacy.
While many think that the advent of computers, assistive technology and the Internet have made Braille obsolete, nothing could be further from the truth. Children who are born blind need Braille to learn to read and write, and refreshable Braille displays on computers now provide access to information such as email in a way that Louis Braille could never have imagined. Technological developments have revolutionised the lives of blind and deaf blind people, making new information more readily and cheaply available in Braille.
Louis Braille
Louis Braille was French. He was blind from the age of three as a result of an accident. As well as inventing the code that is named after him he was also a skilled musician, playing the cello and the organ to a high standard. He was only 15 when he invented the code that was to be named after him, but died of tuberculosis in his forties.
“Braille is knowledge and knowledge is power” was one of the catch cries at the celebration. There is still some way to go if blind and deaf blind people world-wide are to achieve that power. Only 5% of printed material is available in formats that blind people can read, according to the Foundation of the Blind.
I don’t read Braille, but if I lost my sight completely I would still want to be able to read and write. I might well learn Braille. You can find out more about Braille and the celebrations from the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind.
I am curious about Braille literacy around the world. Here in the US, only ten percent of blind children are being taught to read and write Braille — down from fifty percent in the ’60s. It’s less for blind adults. A recent study shows that of the mere thirty percent of working-age blind adults who have jobs, over eighty percent are Braille readers. Our Congress has acknowledged this problem by authorizing the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar. Congress chooses two non-profits each year to help fund with a commemorative coin. The Louis Braille coin funds the “Braille Readers Are Leaders” campaign of the National Federation of the Blind, which seeks to double the number of blind children learning Braille by 2015.
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Braille_Initiative.asp
I’m working on a series of articles about it for the online magazine American Chronicle. Many of our low vision children are forced to accept lower levels of achievement and struggle for hours to use large print. Is it just us?
Louis Braille can we use this image to help raise funde for bolton society for the blind on a visual awareness fund raising day at bolton community college.