World Braille Day falls on 4 January and celebrates the birth of Louis Braille, a Frenchman who invented Braille for the benefit of people who are blind or visually impaired.
Louis Braille lost his eyesight as a child when he accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with his father’s cobbler’s tool. From the age of 10, he spent time at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in France.
With this new system, a fingertip could feel the entire cell unit with one touch and move quickly from one cell to the next
When he was 15, Louis Braille adapted a system of writing that used embossed dots symbolising phonetic sounds. His code was based on cells, comprising a variety of six dot combinations. With this new system, a fingertip could feel the entire cell unit with one touch and move quickly from one cell to the next.
Braille slowly gained acceptance worldwide, however Louis Braille passed away in 1852, two years before the Royal Institute began teaching it.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared 4 January to be World Braille Day in November 2018. As well as celebrating Louis Braille’s birthday, the day acknowledges that visually impaired people deserve the same standard of human rights as everyone else.
