Why More Braille in Public Spaces?

The value of Braille in undeniable. It leads to literacy, independence, and inclusion.
We have research and data to prove the power of Braille.
We have policies and laws to promote Braille education and include Braille in public spaces.

Yet, the barriers to receive adequate training, acquire resources, and access Braille in public spaces remain high.

Why?

Because of the persistent cultural misconceptions that Braille is…

• The last resort because my child or I am not that blind

• Too hard to teach

• Too hard to learn

• Too expensive and too inconvenient to produce and acquire

• Not worth investing in because childhood blindness is a low incident disability category.

Learning Braille should not be a privilege but as normalized as learning another language (although Braille is a code and NOT a language!).

What if we could overcome these objections by creating a Braille-rich environment with high quality, affordable, and interactive 3D-printed Braille and tactile resources to fuel public engagement and community-building?

More exposure to fun and interactive Braille resources will lead to more people embracing and learning the Braille code. With more demand for Braille, we can recruit more teachers, secure funding, and develop more resources to support the next generation of Braille users!

Braille Forward is an initiative to de-stigmatize Braille as something “less than” by developing functional and foundational 3D-printed Braille literacy resources to support access and inclusion. Our Universal Designed products encapsulate the spirit “learning-by-doing” that invites collaboration, community-building, and mainstream integration.

The Braille Forward Vision

In essence, Braille Forward is a culmination of the decade long investment and ingenious entrepreneurship of Mountain Lakes Public Library Makerspace’s team. Ian Matty and Christina Kelly, the co-founders of MLMakersapce, along with Lead Accessible Engineer, Richard He and Tactile Literacy Advocate, Dr. Chi-Hoon Kim, forged an uncharted path to incubate cutting-edge ideas that prioritized Braille literacy through accurate and functional Braille resources. Building community, championing accessibility through Universal Design, and embracing co-collaboration - designing ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ - Mountain Lakes Public Library Makerspace is the preeminent organization for creating inclusive tactile literacy resources.

How We Started

Braille Forward grew out of the unprecedented co-collaboration between Mountain Lakes Public Library Makerspace, Clovernook Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired, and the authors of the children’s book Juniper and the Red Swoosh. Unified under the vision to mainstream Braille in public spaces, the team developed and produced the first-ever multi-modal children’s book about the abacus (as a tool for the blind) in large print, Braille, audio narration, and paired with an innovated 3D-printed abacus.

Our mission continues as Braille Forward - to educate, advocate, and give back. With the support of the Lavelle Foundation and the Scripps Howard Fund, our Braille Forward initiative is developing foundational Braille resources for all Braille skill levels. We are producing ‘happy Braille’ products - with pops of color and interactive by design that showcase the communication elegance of Braille. With ‘happy Braille’ we aim to make Braille found in public visible so it does not fade into backgrounds and sparks dynamic learning through exploration.