Braillethon Programme Empowers Visual Impaired Community

By Sarah Nur Safiyyah Jamil

GOMBAK, 21 October 2023: The highly anticipated Braillethon educational programme organised by Mahallah Aminah Representative Committee and Engineering Students’ Society (ENGINIUS), in collaboration with Disability Services Unit (DSU) and KL Braille Resources, took place on Saturday, 21 October 2023, in IIUM.

The Programme Manager for the Braillethon programme, Nurul Ain Fatihah mentioned, œThe objective of this programme is to create awareness of the needs of blind people in the community and in our surroundings.”

“Moreover, we aim to create books for the blind community to make them accessible and in order to inspire other institutions to also foster social welfare activities in society, she added.

Regarding the mission and vision of the programme, the Manager of KL Braille Resources, Munirah Farhana, expressed before the programme, œWe want to increase the number of braille books so that we can give them to visually impaired children. Furthermore, we would like to bring more people together, for the œSeribu Buku project that we aim for after two years in 2025.

The focus of the programme is on three Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which are: Quality Education (Goal 4), Reduced inequalities (Goal 10) and Partnerships for the Goals (Goal 17).

The Braillethon programme was a success because of the enthusiastic participation and the heartwarming dedication of both committees and external individuals in promoting accessibility and inclusivity for the blind community.

œAfter joining this programme of course Im not the one giving, instead I should be receiving. I am here because I want to give some life hacks to non-blind individuals so that they could convert and share them in the Braille system, said a participant, Amirudin Bin Abdullah.

In his concluding remarks, Amirudin hoped for Braille to remain prominent and widely integrated within Malaysian society and emphasised its application across various settings of using Braille.

The Braillethon Programme programme was sponsored by Bank Islam and was held at the Kulliyyah of Engineering Audi A & Classroom E2-1-1 E2-1-4, IIUM. ***