Is Braille dead, unnecessary and unimportant?  Not in rural Mexico, where
students and their parents are leaping at the opportunity to learn and
use it.  They realize that Braille is often a part of a Blind person
being independent.  The man behind all of this is an Utah Braille reader
who realized that his success in being independent and earning a
doctorate from Brigham young University was in part a result of the blind
people that came before him who  eliminated barriers, developed options,
and paved the way with their ideas and energy to new opportunity and
options.

Kelly
Former BYU student delivers braille to Mexico...
University Wire, 07-12-2001.

(The Daily Universe) (U-WIRE) PROVO, Utah -- In an isolated Mexican
city, nestled against a jungle containing ancient Central American
Indian ruins, approximately 100 blind students acquire the skills
of blindness and literacy because of the vision of a few blind Utah
residents, their friends and LDS Charities.

Norman Gardner, former Brigham Young University graduate student and
executive director of the Orem-based Braille Resource and Literacy
Center, recently headed a group that delivered the necessary equipment
to create high-quality Spanish Braille textbooks to the Centro Integral
para Ciegos: Pachela Rovirosa de Gaudiano (school), in Villahermosa,
  Mexico. Some of the money to buy the equipment was funded through
a grant from LDS Charities.

Gardner, a member of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), has
been legally blind his entire life. As a child, he resisted associating
with other blind people because of the social stigma placed on them.
He carried those feelings with him as he earned his doctorate at the
University of Utah, he said.

Gardner said his association with the NFB shortly after college changed
his view of how blind people can be an integral part of society and
gave him the motivation to look past social stereotypes and help fulfill
a portion of the school's needs.

"I learned that it's respectable to be blind," Gardner said. "I finally
felt peace deep down inside. When I learned that I had been the
beneficiary
of devoted blind people my entire life, I realized that I had a debt.
It was just the thing to do to try to help this school in Mexico."

In June, Gardner, his wife Maggie and son David, Ray and LuWana Martin
of the Utah Division of Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired,
  and Dr. Janice Gygi, chair of marketing and international business
at UVSC, made the trip to Villahermosa with enough supplies to save
months, even years of tireless labor that would otherwise have been
spent in the creation of Braille textbooks.

Braille, created in the 1800's by a blind French teacher named Louis
Braille, is just bumps on paper to those who are unfamiliar with it.
But, to those who use it as a primary means of obtaining information,
  Braille is the porthole through which they view the world. Through
it, they learn everything that print textbooks teach those with sight.

During their June trip, Gardner and his colleagues delivered two
Interpoint
embossers, which allow Braille to be punched on both sides of a sheet
of paper, to the school. They also took the computer software and
supplies necessary to transfer print versions of textbooks into a
format suitable to be translated and created in Braille. In addition,
  they taught six teachers at the school how to use the equipment.

"This is a great time-saver," Gygi said. "Being able to produce more
books will help these children and their families." One family drove
five hours to Villahermosa to obtain other special equipment the group
delivered to help their blind son communicate in Braille.

Martin said that even though the school in Mexico is a great school,
  its administrators were a little overwhelmed with the capacity the
equipment has to change the lives of the students.

"If you can imagine living in the dark ages, imagine someone coming
in and putting in a Kinko's next door -- that's kind of how it is
for the students," Martin said. "There were blind people thinking
their world had ended, but now they're reaching for employment."

Unemployment among blind people is often attributed to a lack of
literacy,
  according to the NFB. Being able to communicate using Braille is
the key to helping school-age blind children grow up to play on a
level playing field as their sighted counterparts.

"This project was an opportunity to help blind individuals compete
in terms of equality when it comes to literacy," Martin said.

"Blind people are capable," she said. "If they acquire the skill of
communicating in Braille they can assume the roles of sighted people."

The Centro is currently headed by the late founder's sister, Margarita
Rovirosa. She and other administrators have decided to name a classroom
after Gardner, proving to students who struggle to learn that though
they may be blind, they don't need to lose their vision.


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