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Raising awareness on the importance of Braille for approximately 1.3 billion people living with some form of distance or near vision impairment, the United Nations observed the first official World Braille Day on Friday, 4 January.
World Braille Day is marked annually on 4 January after the Day was proclaimed by the General Assembly last November, as a means of realising fully the human rights of visually-impaired and partially-sighted people, and bringing written language to the forefront as a critical prerequisite for promoting fundamental freedoms.
Around the world, 39 million people are blind, and another 253 million have some sort of vision impairment. For them, Braille provides a tactical representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols so blind and partially-sighted people are able to read the same books and periodicals printed as are available in standard text form.
Six dots represent each letter, number, even musical and mathematical symbols, to allow the communication of important written information to ensure competency, independence and equality.
To foster more accessible and disability-inclusive societies, the UN launched its first-ever flagship report on disability and development last year, coinciding with the International Day for Persons with Disabilities on which Secretary General Antnio Guterres urged the international community to take part in filling inclusion gaps.
Let us reaffirm our commitment to work together for an inclusive and equitable world, where the rights of people with disabilities are fully realised, he said.
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