World Braille Day: Why is this day celebrated?
According to some estimates, almost 40 million people around the world are visually impaired. In order to raise awareness about this disability and create more accessibility for those affected, January 4 is celebrated as World Braille Day around the world. Braille is a textured, tactile representation of alphabets and numbers using six dots. It allows blind and partially-sighted people to read everything that exists in print form. January 4 is actually the birthday of the inventor of Braille, Louis Braille. Hence, this day is commemorated as the World Braille Day to acknowledge his valuable contribution. World Braille Day also aims at ensuring that visually impaired people do not experience discrimination. Read on to learn more.
History of World Braille Day
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed January 4 as World Braille Day in November 2018. It recognises the rights of those with visual disabilities, and seeks to raise awareness about the same. This world body also emphasises the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006, which considers Braille as an essential requirement in social inclusion, education, freedom of speech and opinion, etc.
Significance of the World Braille Day
According to the World Health Organisation, almost a billion people on the planet suffer from some kind of sight issue with varying degrees of impairment. Those with severe cases of blindness are more vulnerable to social disadvantages in terms of accessibility to information. They also have more obstacles in education and employment. World Braille Day is celebrated in order to shine light on these issues and amplify these voices. It aims to make a level playing field for everyone by providing equal opportunity and rights to those with the disability.
How was Braille invented?
The credit for the invention of Braille goes to a Frenchman named Louis Braille. He lost his eyesight as a child in an unfortunate incident. He had accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with an awl. After this mishap, at the ripe age of 10 years, young Louis resided at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in France. The precocious inventor dedicated his time here to formulate a system of raised, textured dots on a flat surface which had to be decoded through touch. This technique eventually took his name, Braille.
When he grew older, he perfected this method and ended up developing a code based on cells with six dots. This gives a visually impaired reader the ability to feel an entire cell with the touch of a single fingertip and move swiftly from one cell to the next. The popularity and usage of this technique grew noticeably all over the world, and it was eventually accepted all over the world as the primary form of written information for those with visual impairment. However, Braille was not able to witness his revolutionary invention as its formal teaching began in 1954 by the Royal Institute, two years after his death.