International Braille Day 2024

Context: International Braille Day has been observed on January 4 every year since 2019.

• The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities organized extensive awareness programs to commemorate International Braille Day, focusing on Braille literacy.

About International Braille Day

• Establishment: It was established by the UN General Assembly in 2018 to commemorate the birth anniversary of French educator Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille language. 
  • He invented a tactile system of reading and writing for the blind and visually impaired in 1824. Objective: To raise awareness of the importance of Braille as a means of communication for blind and partially sighted people.
• A Representation System: Braille is a tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols using six dots to represent each letter and number, and even musical, mathematical and scientific symbols.Significance: Braille is essential in education, freedom of expression and opinion, and social inclusion, as reflected in Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  • The first Braille system was published in 1829 and was adopted by the National Institute for Blind Youth.
• Kerala Federation of the Blind started the first Braille printing press in 1986.

Must Read: Disability Inclusion: What Is It? And ILO’s SPARK Project

News Source: PIB