Did you know that
- Braille’s roots lie in a Napoleonic Army system for communicating in battlefield conditions
- That you can learn it at any age
- That it draws inspiration from how dominoes are numbered
- And that music notation has been a part of the system since its official debut in 1829?
These are just some of the many really interesting things we learnt during National Braille Week, which started on Monday (11th of October) and officially finished on Sunday (the 18th). The campaign always runs in the second week of October, coinciding with World Sight Day on the 14th.
If you’re not caught up, the idea is to promote awareness of this wonderful tactile system that allows blind and partially sighted people to access literacy by reading and writing. This year, UKAAF teamed up with the lovely people at Sight Scotland (which you may know from its older name, Royal Blind) to publicise the medium. That aligns perfectly, of course, with the charity’s aim of reaching and supporting people who live with sight loss in Scotland, and beyond—as well as ours of promoting accessible document formats, which by definition is kind of what Braille is!
New campaign
Sight Scotland set up an excellent micro-site for the campaign which has had some great content:
A great overview of the history and key characteristics of the writing system
All about explaining how those with sight loss engage with Braille or other accessible formats, as well as underlining why they matter so much (to stay connected with language, prevent isolation, help those with sight loss function in their day to day lives, education, and practical life issues like tenancy and accessing medication).
A Quick Guide to Accessible Formats
A look beyond Braille itself to other ways of presenting printed, written, or visual material to visually impaired and blind people, e.g. large print, use of colour contrasting, audio and digital (such as word/doc, html /plain .txt files, and PDFs which have had an OCR process completed so they can be read by a screen reader.
A great fruit of the Week is it’s being used to kick off a campaign calling for action from the Scottish government and retailers to promote more availability of Braille labelling on retail goods. UKAAF supports both Sight Scotland and its partner on this, Disability Equality Scotland, to end the current situation where Braille is only required for medicines, leaving its users at a disadvantage to sighted shoppers in identifying other goods they wish to purchase.
All in all, I think we can agree National Braille Week has been a very useful and positive one in 2021.
UKAAF Board Member and PR Officer
Carina Birt
