World Braille Day 2022 : Louis Braille - Article Focus

In 2001, to celebrate the birth of Louis Braille, January 4 was declared World Braille Day by the World Blind Union.

World Braille Day was created in 2001 to celebrate the inventor of the tactile alphabet dedicated to the blind and visually impaired, braille is a writing system that allows the blind to communicate.

Despite a massive increase in audio resources through internet broadcasting, braille remains the primary means of literacy for the blind.

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Why World Braille Day is Celebrated?

World Braille Day (January 4) takes place every year on the birthday of Louis Braille, inventor of the reading and writing system used by millions of blind and visually impaired people around the world. 

World Braille Day is an opportunity to raise awareness about the difficulties that blind people face and the importance of continuing to produce works in Braille, so as to give blind people access to the same reading and learning opportunities as people.

History: World Braille Day

World Braille Day on January 4 marks the birth of its inventor Louis Braille. A precious heritage that the Valentin Haüy Association continues to promote, teach and develop. 

Labels, books, sheet music, or digital tablet, this 200-year-old writing continues to be used daily by blind and visually impaired people in 147 countries around the world. Linked destinies, a shared will Louis Braille lost his sight after an accident at the age of three. 

This very gifted student then decided to develop his own alphabet system which he presented in 1827 at the age of 18. Braille sets up its alphabetical code built from 2 rows of 3 points and allows 64 combinations including the alphabet, accents, punctuation, musical characters ... 

While it has continued to evolve, the system developed by Louis Braille represents the first literacy medium for blind people, adapted to many languages. It is still used by blind or visually impaired people, especially for everything related to learning, education, training. 

Promote access to braille

The promotion of braille is one of the main challenges of the Valentin Haüy Association through its training, the translation of text and the printing of documents, participation in the development of digital braille, and it is media library which offers more than 20,000 paper braille books and 3,500 digital braille books! 

This represents the largest collection of books in full and abridged Braille in France. Novels, detective books, biographies, cookbooks, historical documentaries, etc. are thus made available to those who are unable to read because of visual impairment, mental handicap, or motor handicap. 

All these references are available on its online platform ÉOLE ( www.eole.avh.asso.fr/ )

Braille: Make notes accessible to everyone

The Valentin Haüy association is also distinguished by maintaining unique know-how in France: the translation of scores from black to Braille to allow blind musicians to decipher scores. F rançoise Chevalier and  Kevin Robin are among the rare French transcriptionists who make musical scores accessible to visually impaired people. Formed by the Valentin Haüy association, the duo put their expertise in Braille museography at their service. When Kevin Robin joined her in 2008, they came together to meet a demand that continues to diversify. 

“The Braille repertoire has grown over the years; we can go from classical to bossa nova, but also from organ to piano or guitar. " The catalog of the association now has over 3,500 works of all styles and for all musicians. “Choir singers, music teachers, students and even composers (such as Jean-Pierre Leguay who was titular organist at the great organs of Notre-Dame de Paris), call on us. »

More than 350 clients regularly send them scores to be transcribed into Braille according to their particular needs.

Succeeding in the digital transition of brailleWhile thanks to advances in medicine, birth blindness is decreasing, so-called late blindness affects seniors who may suffer from more or less serious vision problems. (Cf. Glaucoma, AMD, etc.). 

This increase in the number of visually impaired people goes hand in hand with the rise of new information and communication technologies capable of meeting the needs of different audiences.

For Manuel Pereira, Digital Accessibility Manager of the Valentin Haüy association,  “  Braille is at a turning point in its history. It is imperative that its digital transition be successful in order to effectively support the inclusion of people with visual disabilities. ” 

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And Wish you a very Happy New Year 2022.

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