On A Mission To Promote Braille Literacy

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 31 (Bernama) – In an effort to provide more educational opportunities to the visually-impaired, KL Braille Resources hopes to collaborate with the Department of Special Education and special education schools to organise school holiday camps for teachers. Its president, Mah Hassan Omar, 60, said the objective of the camp would be to understand the issues surrounding Braille literacy as well as improve the skills of teachers of the visually impaired. "There are still teachers who are not proficient in Braille because of inadequate training. Hence, objectives are not met,” said the Universiti Malaya graduate and Malaysia’s first blind lawyer. He added that Braille proficiency is important because a special education school is required to teach the writing system under the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008. “Everyone knows that knowledge promotes well-being. Ditto for people with visual and hearing impairment who want to learn to read and write. Braille is their only alternative,” said Mah Hassan. He said KL Braille Resources has introduced the Edu Braille board to teach the Braille alphabet to children and those interested in learning the system. "It’s a fast way to teach Braille since there are three levels of encoding that must be mastered beginning with tactile skills, learning the letters and finally sentence-building,” said Mah Hassan, who runs the Mah Hassan & Associates law firm. He said KL Braille Resources also offers free courses to adults who have lost their sight. "Maybe they suffer blindness because of an accident or health issue, but wish to still be able to read,” said Mah Hassan who also created the country’s first Braille-writing tool called Brailet in collaboration with the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM). Mah Hassan believes it would be a positive thing if World Braille Day (Jan 4) is observed nationally to raise awareness on the importance of Braille in the field of education "Access to information for the visually-impaired is vital because we want this group to be productive and an asset to the country," he said. -- BERNAMA