More Braille: More Empowerment – A Live Virtual Conversation (Episode 78)

Thanks, Matthew, and a very warm welcome to everyone.

Um, today is a very special day.

We're marking World Braille Day.

So it's the birthday of Louis Braille, and at the same time, we are launching the joint ICEVI, World Blind Union Global Braille Literacy Campaign: More Braille, More Empowerment.

So the campaign builds on the momentum created last year through Braille 200, where people around the world celebrated 200 years of braille.

The vision of the More Braille, More Empowerment campaign is a global commitment to recognizing braille literacy as a right, not a privilege, empowering touch readers to grow, to dream, and to shape their futures.

It is a two-year global campaign running from today, 4th of January, 2026, through to World Braille Day on the 4th of January, 2028, providing a sustained period of action, collaboration, learning, and advocacy across regions and sectors.

So our goals for the campaign, to promote braille as a fundamental and lifelong literacy, to expand access to braille materials in multiple formats and languages, to strengthen braille teaching and learning from early childhood through to adulthood, and to encourage a wide range of braille technologies to share accessible braille informational resources and build a research evidence base to inform policy and practice.

So to bring this vision and goals into action, the campaign is guided by a global steering committee and implemented through working groups made up of organizations and individuals who are leading the campaign direction and activities in three focus areas.

So the first focus area is advocacy and media, led by Gladys Correa, Muhammad Iqbal Adrali, and myself.

This working group will develop culturally responsible advocacy and media resources, and we thought we would start with the components of the 2026 World Braille theme, education inclusion and accessibility.

The second focus area is informational resources, and this is led by Susan LaVenture, ICEVI's president, Samuel Foulkes, and Awais Alam.

The working group will compile and create accessible multilingual braille informational resources.

And the working group is currently identifying existing resources, and they've actually identified 18 thematic areas so far, which is quite impressive.

And the third focus area is research, led by Doctors Praveena Sookraj-Elay, Birendra Raj Pokharel, and Vimal Kumar Dengla.

And this working group is preparing surveys to gather qualitative and quantitative data using multiple access methods to show the educational, social, and lifelong benefits of braille and to strengthen advocacy with evidence.

So you will hear more about the three focus areas during our panel discussion.

So what are the next steps? So we have in place our governance structure and our monitoring and evaluation framework.

We have our terms of reference between ICEVI and World Blind Union.

And with today's official launch, the work of the steering committee and the three working groups will build momentum as we enter 2026.

So some of the working groups are really at the beginning point, and some are a bit further advanced.

So this is not a campaign owned by ICEVI and World Blind Union.

It is a shared effort, shared by blind people, educators, researchers, advocates, partners, sponsors, basically organizations and individuals who are contributing their expertise, their experience, and their time.

So today is not just a launch.

It's an invitation, an invitation to recognize braille as a right, an invitation to strengthen braille access, teaching, and policy, and an invitation to work together across regions and sectors.