Our Story
04 Jan 2021
Every January 4th is known worldwide as World Braille Day. This day acknowledges the importance of the Braille system for the blind community. But who invented the Braille system? Mr. Budi Dharma, one of the teachers in the Center for the Disabled tells us a quick story about that. It was Louis Braille who invented such a helpful writing system for the blind community. With this Braille system, Mr. Budi has been teaching the blind community how to read Braille for two years. “It is not easy to teach someone how to read Braille. It depends on each individual’s finger sensitivity,” he said. Lucky enough for the Eyelovin team, Mr. Budi happily explains how to write and read the Braille system.
The Braille system is the alphabet for blind people universally. By combining 26 different symbols that represent every 26 alphabets, sentences are formed. There are two specific tools to write Braille, which are Reglet, and Stylus.
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Reglet’s length matches the size of a vertical A4 paper, with four rows of cells. Each row consists of 28 cells for Braille characters. There are six holes in each cell as a guide for the writer to punch a dent in the paper. Braille writing begins from right to left, because the dent forms on the other side of the paper.
The stylus’s function is to make a dent in the paper so that readers can feel the letters. The paper must be at least 80 grams thick for the stylus not to puncture the paper.
Unfortunately, these tools aren’t available publicly. Only in certain areas that sell tools to support Braille writing. Just like any other regular book, reading Braille begins from left to right. The index finger is mostly chosen to read Braille by the blind community, as the index finger is considered more sensitive than other fingers.
According to Mr. Budi, the only way to learn Braille is by hard work and lots of practice. There is no way around it. What makes Braille learning even harder is during this pandemic, classes are forced to stop. Fortunately, Mr. Budi has an alternative solution, which is by giving instructions and guidance by phone. Although it’s not as effective as offline learning, it is better than nothing at all.
Currently, the Braille system is getting left behind even by the blind community because it is more convenient to learn verbally and memorization rather than Braille learning. Therefore Mr. Budi encourages everyone to learn Braille because verbal learning is more forgettable rather than reading Braille. Mr. Budi personally prefers reading Braille too. For the future, Mr. Budi hoped that the government and society would help by providing the infrastructure needed for the blind community to adapt to society.
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