EXPERIMENTING WITH BRAILLE CODE ON WORLD BRAILLE DAY

Our residents at Chestnut Lodge started the New Year by experimenting with a new skill – learning about braille on World Braille Day (4 January).

“The idea of a braille-based activities session came about thanks to some of our residents who have difficulty with their sight,” explained activities co-ordinator Gary Shackle.

“We started looking into it and discovered that World Braille Day is celebrated every year on 4 January, which was the birthday in 1809 of Louis Braille, the blind French inventor of braille.

“So on 4th January our residents were shown the braille alphabet and we had a discussion about how important it is and learned a bit about the life of Louis Braille.

“Residents had great fun with a simplified version of the code: creating their names by picking their own colours and copying the braille alphabetic format.”

Around 340,000 to 350,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted across the UK, with nearly 2 million people having sight loss that significantly affects daily life.