Kuwait celebrates world Braille day saturday

Kuwait takes part in global celebrations on January 4th marking the World Braille Day, namely for commemorating birthday of Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille language which helps blind people to read and write. Braille was born in France in 1809. At the age of three, he accidentally became blind. However, he had a great yearning to be able to read and write properly, despite his disability. An attentive kid at school, at the age of 15, he developed a set of symbols by making raised dots on a piece of paper. The dots could be easily felt by hand, thus enabling even the blind to feel them and hence, read and write. The language developed by Louis Braille is today known as the Braille language. Chairman of the Kuwaiti Society for the Blind Snaitan Al-Mutairi said in an interview with KUNA on the occasion that the association would hold, tomorrow, workshops and diverse activities aimed at promoting the public awareness of rights of the blind and key role of the Braille language in aiding this segment of the society. Invention of the Braille method has helped, on a wide scale, the blind to "satisfy their needs for knowledge and learning. They have become able to read and write like other people but with different means." The Kuwaiti society, considering the great necessity and need for the Braille method, has established a special publishing and printing house, he said, noting that it has printed many cultural books and interpretation of the Koran in Arabic and English according to the Braille method. Kuwait is a pioneer in publishing the Koran according to Braille. So far, the state printed 500 translated copies of the Koran and the number of copies reached 4,000 in 2013. On future plans, he indicated at coordination with the Ministry of Information to release Kuwaiti cultural magazines such as Al-Arabi and the Gazette in the Braille language. Faleh Al-Azmi, the chairman of Al-Sabah center for information development, affiliated to the society, said the blind have been furnished with diverse innovations, namely the Perkins digital typing machines. There are other innovations such as "the electronic lines," a special program for the blind that can be connected to the bluetooth. For her part, the rector of Al-Noor School, Farida Al-Ajmi, said the school, established in 1958 to teach the blind, uses the Braille technology for educating them, in addition to other technologies such as Braille Sense, a notetaker that transforms texts and figures into the Braille language.