Main content

World Braille Days (WBD) 2024

Accessible Libraries, the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC), Alternate Education Resources Ontario (AERO), Braille Literacy Canada (BLC), the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB), the Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA), the CNIB Foundation, the National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS), and the Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired (PRCVI) are pleased to collaborate on a celebration of World Braille Day for the month of January.

All events will be recorded and posted for future viewing. Stay tuned for more information, language options, and bios for our speakers.

Braille Boost!

Do your fingers need a recharge after the holiday break? Check out Braille Boost – a series of fun braille games and activities to celebrate World Braille Day throughout January! These braille-related activities will include mazes, Sudoku puzzles, and decoding secret messages. TSVIs and braille transcribers can download and emboss activities for big World Braille Month fun with their students. Materials for primary, intermediate/middle and secondary learners will be available in contracted and uncontracted UEB as well as French. Register today!

Date/Time: Ongoing.

Registration is now closed.

Tech Education to Tactile Graphics: Community Programming for Blind and Low-Vision Patrons at New York Public Library

Chancey Fleet, Assistive Technology Coordinator at New York Public Library, will share her journey from founding volunteer of a small Saturday tech coaching service to leader of a program that provides 160 hours per month of one-to-one tech coaching, free online workshops, coding exploration, accessible arts and a fully equipped tactile graphics lab. She'll include strategies for building volunteer capacity and community partnerships, leading tech programming on a small budget, and creating cohesive, engaged patron communities online.

The second half of the talk will focus on tactile graphics: what they are, why they matter, and options for making them in a home, library or community setting. Chancey will discuss strategies for getting youth and adult patrons interested in tactile literacy, how blind and low-vision people can find and create tactile graphics on their own, and pros and cons to consider when choosing tactile graphics equipment. She'll end with information about the convergence of coding and tactile graphics through drawing with SVG code, the potential and limitations of AI image generation for tactile graphics, and what the future may hold for tactile graphics in libraries and beyond.

Date/Time: Thursday, January 11, 2024. 10 am Pacific; 11 am Mountain; 12 noon Central; 1 pm Eastern; 2 pm Atlantic.

Registration is now closed. The recording of this webinar will be available in the coming weeks.

Note: While this session will be in English, it will be simultaneously translated into French for those who wish to take in this fantastic session in French.

Writer’s Festival

Join us for a virtual writer’s festival where blind authors, Andrew Leland and Jinnie Saran, will showcase their recent works and discuss connections to braille within their works and lived experiences. This 90-minute panel will be moderated by Charmaine Co and includes time for a question-and-answer session.

Date/Time: Thursday, January 18, 2024. 10 am Pacific; 11 am Mountain; 12 noon Central; 1 pm Eastern; 2 pm Atlantic.

Registration is now closed. The recording of this webinar will be available in the coming weeks.

Content Creators Panel

On Saturday, the 20th, we are hosting a Content Creators’ presentation with four panellists discussing how braille is an integral part of their art-making process. This will be a virtual 90-minute discussion with a host/moderator and panellists Grant Hardy and Jen Jesso from B.C., Wendy Edey from Alberta, and Kim Kilpatrick from Ontario. General topics of this presentation include independent storytellers, reporting at AMI, and media creation at PRCVI. We look forward to welcoming everyone into this vibrant space.

Date/Time: Saturday, January 20, 2024. 10 am Pacific; 11 am Mountain; 12 noon Central; 1 pm Eastern; 2 pm Atlantic.

Registration is now closed. The recording of this webinar will be available in the coming weeks.

 

Logo for the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians.
Braille Literacy Canada logo. Black text on a white background: braille literacy Canada curves around an image at the top; littératie braille canada curves around the icon at the bottom. The icon is a black square with a white circle cutting out a black dot
Canadian Assistive Technology logo. Yellow background with red (Canadian) and black (Assistive Technology) text. In the right corner is a black and red letter C that ends with a red maple leaf.
Canadian Council of the Blind logo. Blue text on a white background: Canadian Council of the Blind on the left and Le Consel Canadien Des Aveugles on the right. Two blue outline figures are in the centre with interlocked arms.
CNIB foundation Engish logo on the left. Fondation INCA logo on right.
Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA) logo. Black text on a white background. A red and burgundy starburst triangle pattern surrounds the 'C' in CELA on the right side of the logo.
Connected differing coloured mountainous triangles: blue, purple, teal, red, and yellow each representing a disability. The text Library Accessibility Resource Centre is below the triangles.
Humanware logo. Human is in dark grey text, the word ware and the TM symbol is orange text. Below, in the dark grey, is the text see things. differently. Above the Humanware text is an orange dot and semi-circle.
The NNELS logo. NNELS is written in grey text on a white background. A red hexagon design is beneath NNELS.
The PRCVI logo. This logo contains PRCVI written in blue text, followed by PRCVI written in sim braille.