Braille Institute of America

So I had no idea what I was going to do.

But I went Braille Institute, kind of had this little outreach meeting and I found out about vocational rehab and the training center in Northern California to learn some cane skills and Braille and so on.

And so I went up there, took those classes.

I met a lady up there and we ended up getting married and And moved to Utah.

We'd like to thank a number of organizations, um, who have partnered with the campaign.

The Braillists Foundation is one of those, of course, but we also want to thank the International Council on English Braille, ICEB; the DAISY Consortium; the World Intellectual Property Organization, which is the, uh, pa- the, the, the organization for the Accessible Books Consortium; the European Blind Union Braille Working Group; and the Braille Institute of America.

Thank you to all of those organizations for being a partner in the campaign's work.

We also wanna thank the campaign sponsors, who are Dot Incorporated; CBM, which is Christian Blind Mission, and they have a particular role, uh, to bring the campaign into the lesser economically developed countries; and Humanware.

Artifact produces independent documentary films that focus on social issues, everything from immigration to healthcare to disability, and we've been making films for about 20 years now.

And you reached out to the Braille Institute to create this documentary.

What sparked this, and why was it important to let the young people be the directors?

The Braille Institute, which runs the Braille Challenge, is based here in Los Angeles, and I used to actually have an office around the corner from them and would walk by their building and wonder, "What happens at the Braille Institute?" And looked into it and learned about the Braille Challenge and just thought it sounded so amazing, and they offered me the opportunity to come and just sit and, and observe one year.

And I was just blown away by not only how brilliant and charismatic and charming the kids were, but the power of community, how wonderful it was for these kids to have the opportunity to be in a room where, for many of them, you know, it's one of the few times a r- a, a year when they're not the only blind kid in the room, when they're surrounded by others like them.

And there was just something so beautiful about that.

And so we collaborated with the Braille Institute, and we decided to make a film.

And as part of that, we started thinking about, you know, how does one make a film about the Braille Challenge? And pretty quickly, it was clear that myself, I'm a sighted person or a sighted camera person, that there was something just inherently off about the idea of us doing the filming and making the film ourselves.

I got two more left.

Tomorrow, the Braille Institute is going to be hosting Eye Candy over at Pal Joey's, which is located on 5147 Waring Road in San Diego.

That's going to be from 8 a.m. to 2 tomorrow, everybody.

Proceed to support the Braille Institute, who offers free classes and services for people of all ages with vision loss.

So check that one out.

And last but not least, the Beach City Classics up in Huntington Beach from 6 to 8 p.m. It's a 501c3 organization, so it's not a profit.