The speech by Professor Márcia Noronha that we have prepared for you today also comes from the World Blindness Summit and focuses on the current situation of the Braille system in Brazil.
Above all, it deals with the challenges and advances in the field of inclusive education and the importance of modern technologies for people with visual and hearing impairments, and provides an exciting insight into the history, development, and future prospects of the Braille system as a tool for participation and inclusion.
It should be noted that the speech is based on a transcript and may therefore contain minor deviations or inaccuracies in the wording.
The Braille System and the Advancement of Technologies as an Inclusion Tool
Good morning, everyone. I am Professor Márcia Noronha. We are going to bring a little bit of Braille system perception, not only as a reading and writing tool, but also as a communication system.
In particular, I work in the deaf and blind sector.
And we have some students who have been benefiting from Braille Tattoo as a communication system.
The title of our lecture is Braille System and the Advancement of Technologies as an Inclusion Tool.
So, the population data for yesterday’s presentation, you have already brought some things, right?
According to the UN, the world population reached a mark of 8 billion.
232 individuals on November 15, 2022.
We are 8 billion people, a little more probably.
With a forecast of reaching 9 billion in 2037.
In other words, we are expanding the planet in population terms.
According to the UN, 2.2 billion people are visually impaired.
And it is estimated that 45 million are blind and 269 million are visually impaired.
According to the calculations, there are approximately 314 million people with some kind of visual impairment in the world.
In Brazil, it is estimated that approximately 3.4% of the population above 2 years of age has some kind of visual impairment.
Which, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, corresponds to 6 million, almost 7 million people.
Although we do not have exact statistical data of how many users of the Braille system there are,
it is estimated that 150 million people in the world are users of the system.
I also brought here some reflections about the education of the blind.
We have the data, the first records date from ancient times, right?
But we are going to have as a starting point the year 1784,
with the foundation of the Institute of Young Blind People by Valentin Haüy,
whose reading method was based on the use of letters in relief.
In 1819, Luis Braille won a scholarship and was enrolled in the Institute of Young Blind People in Paris,
where he became familiar with Haüy’s method and decided to perfect it.
Based on the system created by Charles Barbier, a combination of 12 points for night reading by soldiers,
Luis Braille reduces the number of points and thus the Braille system emerges,
which, as we know today, is a combination of 6 points in relief, which is what is used in Brazil,
which allows to form not only the letters of the alphabet, but also numbers and musical notation.
We know that there are some users who use the Braille of 8 points,
but here in Brazil what is really used is that of 6 points.
In 1879, the Braille system, after being disseminated both in Europe and in the United States,
is recognized as a universal system of writing and reading, and adopted universally in schools around the world.
In Brazil, the Braille system comes through the young José Álvares de Azevedo,
who met the Braille system as a student at the Institute of Young Blind People in Paris,
and who, upon returning to Brazil in 1850, has as his ideal to disseminate the knowledge of Braille in our country.
He has worked actively as a teacher since he was 16, with the aim of ending the illiteracy of blind people in Brazil.
And here we are already talking about the 19th century.
His activism will result in the creation, in 1854, of the Imperial Institute of Young Blind People in the city of Rio de Janeiro,
a work that did not make it. José Álvares de Azevedo died prematurely, six months before the foundation of what is now the Benjamin Constant Institute,
which is 161 years of existence. The Braille system, and also the deafblindness,
point out the importance of this system, of this deafblindness.
And it is not a new form of writing, but it is a form of communication.
Here we have two illustrations, saying that tactile Braille uses the configuration of the indicating finger and the ring finger that indicates the Braille cell.
And as of the phalanges, we would touch the equivalent point of the letter of the Braille cells.
And in a way, we use the position of the writing, the apparatus, typewriter, and it stands on the table, and the interpreter or the communicator then keys in with his hands what is being said.
So, for us, the Braille system is indeed seen as an inclusion tool, and it allows the access of blind individuals, low vision, and also to education and culture as well as deafblind individuals,
transforming this as important aid for the inclusion process for these individuals.
Today, we have a national educational policy not only referring to inclusion, but we also have the vision of education for everyone and human rights included.
So, in the agenda of the UN 2030, it establishes that education is an initial step so that we can create a more equitative and inclusive society.
It defines that we should consider the diversity of students as an opportunity to improve and democratize the learning, and with the goal of developing sustainable development for, that highlights that guarantee an inclusive education, equitative and of quality, and promote the learning opportunities during the whole life of everyone.
So, inclusion helps to overcome obstacles. So, in Brazil, there is a decree 7,037, December 21, 2019, that approves the human rights program and establishes in its guideline, find the value of the human individual as a central subject of the development and the directive 19 strengthening the principles of democracy
and human rights in the basic education system in the higher education community. And with the strategic goal 5, we find access to quality education and the assurance of permanence in schools.
And with the universalization of the teaching and serving the child education, including in the curriculum, the school curriculum, including practices, arts, and the need of adequate health, as well as physical and sport activity.
And then, the question arises how to face the challenges that persist and how to battle inequality. We have highlighted the actions that will still be necessary to involve the families in the educational process and the fighting for inclusion through clinical policy, broader than just in the future curriculum, the learning of the Braille system as a discipline.
It should become more accessible to people with visual disabilities. And also, we need to make more accessible cultural programs, museums, theatres, cinemas, cultural events.
We need to broaden the visibility of people with sensory disabilities through the media in such a way as to reach more layers of the population, sensitizing them to the demands and rights of this population group.
And one of the suggestions is to start with our neighborhood. Everyone is invited to collaborate.
And we cannot talk about Braille without talking about touch. Touch not only allows us to access a great variety of information in the world around us, it is the first sense to be developed and remains present even after vision and hearing begin to be impaired.
Touch can be considered the sense that most stimulates socialization and provides us with the most important means of contact with the outside world.
The interpersonal touch plays a fundamental role in the management of our wellbeing.
This essential role implies the interaction with other people. The sense of touch provides us with a communication channel that is not always valued.
So, from now on, I pass the floor to Bianca, who will talk about the aspect related to technology.
Bianca:
Braille allows blind and deaf people to take active participation in several aspects of their professional and social lives.
We have digital technology features that can be associated with Braille and can take Braille to a whole new level.
The Braille system is an extremely important assistive technology feature for those with visual impairment and also for the deafblind community.
So, there are comments about some analog and digital tech features that we work at the Instituto Benjamin Constant that make all the difference in the process of acquiring and using Braille.
As analog resources, printed Braille, also books that are distributed to schools that are already adapted to the Braille system, also slates and Braille type writing machines.
These are accessible resources widely available in all schools that help visually impaired people with their education efforts.
In the Brazilian context, the equipment is costly and it also needs to provide specialized using instructions and there’s a gap in training professors on that matter, especially when it comes to using several formats.
Braille displays are important resources. If aligned with the digital technology, they could be useful, but unfortunately not easy to access in Brazil.
We would like to highlight some resources, apps and programs that have been developed in the country that help us in the process for disseminating Braille.
For example, an operational system that is focused on blind people. It can work with a simple keyboard, with a nebulation in the Braille Keyboard, and we use the Braille teaching as an electronic resource.
We also have devices to adapt materials like Braille, it allows teachers or professors that are not literate on Braille, but they can offer the students the material with the help of a Braille printer.
As persistent challenges in our context, there will be education and training to professors, which is still insufficient, equal access to those assistive resources, especially hightech resources that are more costly,
and also unequal distribution of those devices in a continental country, unequal distribution of printed Braille material. However, there are some technologies that are promising.
And also, I’d like to mention the Brazilian inclusion policy celebrating 10 years, which is providing important support for dissemination of Braille. Also, adoption of distance education courses that can help educate professors at remote locations.
We also have research and development of lowcost solutions, plus democratization of access to technologies for blind people, which is supported by our legislation.
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