Braille Book Library To Open Soon!

Today we will meet with Rajan Raut and the staff at the NAWB (National Association for the Welfare of the Blind/Visually Impaired - BVI). We had a lot of projects to discuss, most important of all is the Inauguration and program planning for the National Braille Library! Imagine a resource center for all visually impaired children from grades 1 -10 filled with text books and story books that can open up their minds despite a childhood they may have been deprived of, information their families had no idea how to communicate and a possibility of a future! Let’s put this in better perspective, there is one digital Braille-book printer for the entire Nepal while here in the US there are 2 digital printers for each school district. The NAWB waits patiently for the Braille books to come from the government and distributes these to the BVI students around Nepal. With a backlog in production, there is hardly any time to develop Braille storybooks or informational reference books that may augment the children’s learning.

This itself is a dream come true! In September, 2009 at our TRIFC dinner, Cindy Holm, Rob and some Rotaractors who had just come back from their Nepal visit were asking for contacts because they wanted to print Braille books to send over to Nepal. Cindy connected Rob with Seedlings, a non-profit that publishes and sells Braille books. Through TRIFC, we ordered $1000 worth of storybooks for all age levels. They sent the books over and these are the first books to occupy the new library. Cindy also had contacted and heard that the WA State Braille Resource Library was purging old books. “We’ll take them!” said Cindy as she proceeded to arrange for a Rotarian to donate warehouse space for the books. Cindy, who is now a Rotarian with the Maple Valley Rotary Club arranged for club-volunteers to repackage the books to be shipped overseas courtesy of the USPS. Thanks, Cindy Holm!!

More books are also on their way to Nepal from the Washington D.C. Library of Congress Braille Book Library and other state resource centers like Ohio and Tennessee! When word gets out, word gets out!!

What a great project, the Inauguration is set for March 26th and we’re rounding up the VIPs for the ceremony but the true VIPs will be the bind/visually impaired children who will benefit from this resource!