Charity Hopes More People Will Learn Braille

A woman who is visually impaired said she jumped at the chance to learn Braille despite it being like “another language”.

Jenny Stafford said she had hoped to study Braille when she started to lose her sight but was told no one taught it in the island.

She said learning the system which enables blind and visually impaired people to read and write would give her “another level of communication” and allow her to read the Braille labelling on her medication.

Ms Stafford was among those who attended an event organised by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and local charity EYECAN at Jersey Library on Wednesday celebrating 200 years of Braille.

Ms Stafford had a test to see if her fingers were sensitive enough to use Braille and a lesson to learn some of the letters of the alphabet.

She said learning was challenging but the opportunity was “amazing”.

“It’s like another language but it’s very, very interesting and at the moment I’m enjoying it, but it is early days,” she said.

Mark Coxshall from sight charity EYECAN said very low numbers of people were currently learning Braille with the charity.

He said they did not know how widespread the skill was in the island and the charity was motivated to grow the number of people learning with them.

“We’ve got two people learning at the moment and we’ve got three people identified through their parents who want to make sure the learning is available to their children,” he said.

Dave Williams, from RNIB, opened the event and said he wanted to highlight the importance of Braille for those who are visually impaired.

He said he used Braille to read bedtime stories to his son and “actually proposed to my wife using a braille scrabble board”.

Mr Williams added: “Braille means independence, it means opportunity and it means we as blind people have the ability to write our own story.”

The visit to Jersey was part of a year-long RNIB Braille and Beyond UK tour of libraries to mark the 200th anniversary of Braille.