Send your New Year message in Braille
04.01.08
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This is the first online Braille writing application which allows people to send ‘secret’ messages and has been created to support Royal Blind's National Braille Week (4-10 January, 2008)
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In a survey 88% of people listed sight as their most important sense and almost half said the thing they would miss most if they were blind would be seeing their friends and family.(1)
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2 million people in >UK have sight problems. Over 370,000 are registered as blind or partially sighted and around 20,000 say that Braille is their preferred reading medium although many others use it for labelling.(2)
- The Royal Blind's Scottish Braille Press produced 6 million pages of Braille last year.
To coincide with the birthday of Louis Braille (the inventor of Braille) and World Braille Day, Royal Blind is launching the first National Braille Week in the UK. To support the event the charity has developed a website that celebrates all aspects of Braille, www.nationalbrailleweek.org. Visitors to the site will be able to discover interesting facts about Braille – how it was created and how it is used in the 21st century - and send an e-card with messages rendered into a Braille image using Yomego's(4) entertainment platform. Recipients will be given Braille information to decipher the message or will be able to follow a link back to the Royal Blind site to have the message decoded for them.
Richard Hellewell, chief executive of Royal Blind said: “The new application is intended to help unlock the mystery of Braille and highlight its importance to the country's blind and partially sighted community. It is a fun way for sighted people to learn about Braille and perhaps send a special New Year message to friends, colleagues and family in Braille for them to break the code.”
National Braille Week marks the beginning of a campaign by Royal Blind that will develop over the next year, to support the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille. In a survey commissioned to support the event, findings suggest that although we don't think blind people are sufficiently provided for, we do recognise the implications of living without sight. In a survey 88% of people listed sight as their most important sense and almost half said the thing they would miss most if they were blind would be seeing their friends and family.
Richard Hellewell continued: “The ability to read and write in Braille is the single most important gateway to opportunity for the UK's blind or partially sighted people. It is the building block of literacy which is the building block of independence. People who are blind and know Braille are known to be more likely to be employed than those who rely on voice synthesizers.
“You wouldn't tell a class of 6 year old children that they don't need to lean to read any more because computers can do it for them. But every day, that's what some people who are blind and visually impaired are told. People need to be literate, to read, write, count – in order to enjoy intellectual freedom, personal security and equal opportunities. Braille is used all over the world but outside our community there is little knowledge or understanding about its use. Creating the secret message application is a great way to raise awareness, which we hope will inspire interest and support for Braille and Royal Blind.”
Kristen Bennie for Yomego added: “Working with Royal Blind really brings into focus how online promotion and interactive devices can be made to work for specialised organisations to raise awareness. At the end of the day, Royal Blind needs to find new supporters and encourage funding and we hope that this will at least draw attention to their work.”
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