DATES OF NATIONAL BRAILLE WEEK ARE CHANGING

Royal Blind Press Release

For Immediate Release

27 September 2013

The dates of National Braille Week are changing. The celebration of the use of Braille and other alternative formats for blind and visually impaired people will now take place during the week that World Sight Day falls, from 7-13 October 2013.

National Braille Week, which is run by the charity Royal Blind, celebrates the tactile Braille system for reading and writing, which provides literacy, opportunity and independence to visually impaired and blind people all over the world. The dates are being changed from 4th-10th January to enable more people to get involved.

This year to celebrate National Braille Week Royal Blind is organising an exhibition on the history of Braille and the Scottish Braille Press at the iconic Royal Blind School in Edinburgh on 10th October. The exhibition will also be featured online at www.nationalbrailleweek.org

In previous years National Braille Week has seen a host of celebrity support including Stephen Fry, Susan Boyle, Michael Ball and Ian Rankin. Exhibitions have been created by blind artists, books have been transcribed into Braille and a Braille app was made.

This year National Braille Week is being supported by former Royal Blind School pupil and London 2012 Paralympic Silver Medalist Libby Clegg.

Davina Shiell, Marketing Manager at Royal Blind said:

“National Braille Week aims to raise awareness of Braille and other alternative formats. With the use of Braille, blind and visually impaired people are able to learn spelling, punctuation and paragraphing, allowing them to read books, exam papers and other important documents that need to be understood to get through life and the working world. These days, many blind and visually impaired people use large print and audio formats as well.

“We hope that many people will be able to join us in celebrating National Braille Week this year by organising their own activities, coming along to our exhibition or viewing it online.”

Places for the exhibition at the Royal Blind School on 10 October can be booked at bit.ly/NBW2013

For more information please contact:

Davina Shiell, Marketing and Fundraising Manager, Royal Blind

Tel: 0131 229 1456

Email: davina.shiell@royalblind.org

Notes to Editors

Royal Blind is a registered charity that runs services for blind and visually impaired people throughout the UK.

Our vision at Royal Blind is to make a significant contribution to building a community in which blind and partially sighted people, including those who also have other disabilities, are fully included and lead fulfilling lives. www.royalblind.org

Braille is a system of touch reading and writing for people who are blind or visually impaired. It consists of raised dots to represent letters of the alphabet and includes symbols for punctuation, mathematics, music, foreign languages and computer notation.  Braille is not a language, but a code by which languages may be written and read. Louis Braille (4 January 1809 to 6 January 1852) was from a small town called Coupvray in France. By the time Louis was five, he was completely blind in both eyes. By the age of 15 he had created a system for communication based on dots, which was first published in 1829 with additional symbols for mathematics and music. More information about Louis Braille’s life can be found at http://www.nationalbrailleweek.org/page/blog/blog/24/Who-was-Louis-Braille

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