Seeing with your fingertips
Meet Rowan Garel from Belize. He is 10-years-old, has completed pre-school and is now in Standard Three (UK year 6, American 5th grade), and uses Braille to study.
The Braille alphabet can be read through feeling a series of raised dots with your fingertips. It can be produced using a slate and stylus whereby each dot is created from the back of the page, writing in mirror image. It can also be formed either by hand or on a Braille typewriter (Perkins Brailler), or it can be produced by a Braille embosser attached to a computer.
Braille and school
In order that students who are blind can attend school, their textbooks and assignments need to be translated into Braille and their teachers trained in how to read the tactile form of writing. Belize is up-to-date with this technology, which is accessible to all Belizeans through Sightsavers’ partner the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired (BCVI).
Using a scanner, Braille translator software and a Braille embosser, BCVI produces textbooks and other printed materials for its clients. Last year alone, BCVI produced 60 books, articles and school materials in Braille.
BCVI have been supporting Rowan since he was a little over a year old. He is now very independent, and an example of how people who are blind can make full use of their talents and abilities.
In 2008 BCVI helped 58 students who are blind receive an education, from preschool to university. There are a total of 203 clients currently benefiting from the organisation’s programmes.
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