World Braille Day (04/01)

On January 4, 2019, a holiday dedicated to the invention of the French typhlopedagogist Louis Braille, – World Braille Day, was celebrated for the first time, which was established by a resolution of the UN General Assembly (A/RES/73/161) in November 2018, in order to raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication for the full realization of the human rights of blind and visually impaired people.

Louis Braille was born in the early 19th century in France to a shoemaker and saddler. An accident at the age of three led to the boy developing sympathetic inflammation of the eyes and becoming blind. Fortunately, his parents made great efforts to get the child educated. He attended a school for blind children and studied there according to the relief-linear font B that already existed at that time. Gayui. Soon the teenager drew attention to the letter encoding system used in the army and invented by Captain Charles Barbier, called «-night font». This system was used to read in the dark by touch.

In 1824, Louis Braille created an alternative version of the alphabet for blind people to the Gayuy script used. This alphabet was based on tactile embossed dot font. It was a system for encoding letters and numbers using certain combinations of convex dots. The font invented by Louis Braille turned out to be very convenient, despite the fact that his first assessment by doctors was negative. The invention has become widespread throughout the world and is still used in typhlopedagogy.

At the end of the 19th century, the first Braille typewriter appeared in the United States. This invention continued to improve into the 20th century, by the middle of which the first printers for embossing in Braille appeared. By the end of the 20th century, Braille began to be used in computer technology, where Braille Display, a – output device for displaying text information in Braille, appeared. Over time, Braille was adapted to many languages of the world.

The limited capabilities of people who are visually impaired require special attention from society and the state. After all, according to the World Health Organization, there are 39 million completely blind people on Earth alone, and the total number of people with visual diseases is a billion people.

Louis Braille's invention in helping blind and visually impaired people realize their rights and opportunities was appreciated by the UN. The birthday of the famous typhlopedagogue became fundamental when establishing the memorable date. In 2019, January 4 marked the 210th anniversary of his birth.

Braille is used by blind and visually impaired people not only for reading, but also for writing. True, writing has its own characteristics. Signs are written by piercing the dots on the back of the sheet from right to left so that reading is possible in the traditional form (from left to right). Over time, the Braille alphabet was improved and complicated by new signs. Today, with its help you can convey not only letters and numbers, but also musical signs, mathematical and scientific symbols.

For people with low vision, living in confined spaces poses a number of challenges in terms of independence and isolation, especially for people who rely on the use of touch to communicate their needs and access information.

Even under normal circumstances, persons with disabilities are less likely to have access to health care, education, employment and participation in society. They are more likely to live in poverty, are more likely to experience violence, neglect and abuse, and are among the most vulnerable in any crisis-affected community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how critical it is to produce the necessary information in accessible formats, including Braille and audible formats. Otherwise, many persons with disabilities may face a higher risk of infection due to lack of access to guidelines and precautions to protect and reduce the spread of the pandemic. The pandemic also highlighted the need to intensify all digital access activities to ensure digital inclusion for all people.

Ensuring equality in rights plays a huge role for people with disabilities, and the Braille alphabet in this direction has become one of the most important inventions and tools that allow people to realize the right to communication, freedom of expression of their thoughts and views, beliefs, as well as access to works of world culture and scientific knowledge, overcome social barriers to development.

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