ICEVI West Asia

ICEVI Message for World Braille Day, 4th January 2021

Organizations of and for persons who are blind or visually impaired celebrate the 4th January every year as World Braille Day, to pay homage and gratitude to Louis Braille, the inventor of the tactile reading and writing system for the millions of blind and the visually impaired persons. The United Nations declared 4th January as World Braille Day in 2018 to celebrate the birth of Louis Braille and to raise awareness about the importance of Braille for blind and the visually impaired persons.

Braille is a dot based script. There are six dots arranged in two vertical lines of three dots each. Each dot is assigned a particular number. The text of all languages, maths, music and technical material can be transcribed into Braille using this script. The uniqueness of Braille is that a person knowing the script can read and write text of any language, since the script is based on the principle of phonetics.

Braille literacy is essential for visually impaired persons for their education, work and to perform day-to-day activities. To realize the commitments made by governments in Articles 21 and 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ICEVI makes an earnest appeal to government and education leaders to take urgent steps to promote the teaching and learning of Braille, boost Braille production to ensure the availability of tactile reading material, and to facilitate the availability of Braille reading devices at an affordable cost.

This World Braille Day message is dedicated to the late Mr. A.K. Mittal, Secretary General of the World Blind Union, who was a passionate advocate for the right to read in braille.

International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment

President: Dr Frances Gentle

Chief Executive Office: Dr M.N.G. Mani Contact Address: No. 3, Professors’ Colony, Sri Ramakrishna Vidyalaya Post Coimbatore 641 202, Tamil Nadu, INDIA

Email: ceo201922@gmail.com; Website: icevi.org