World Braille Day, marked on January 4, emphasises the significance of Braille as a form of communication for the partially sighted and blind. The United Nations has been commemorating the day since 2019. World Braille Day also commemorates the birth anniversary of Louis Braille, who was born on January 4, 1809. After losing his sight during childhood, the French educator devised the Braille technique.
The purpose of the day is to raise awareness of the braille language, which attempts to bridge the gap among normal and differently-able individuals. Coupvray, France, gave birth to the creator of an extensively adopted touch device enabling blind persons to read and write. Braille created a system of writing that employed, paradoxically, an awl-like instrument to punch symbols on a sheet that can be sensed and read by blind people after himself being irreparably blinded at the age of three in his father’s saddle-making factory. The method was generally neglected until Braille died in misery on January 6, 1852, in Paris, from illness. The United Nations declared January 4th is World Braille Day in a proclamation issued in 2018.
