HUNDREDS of visually impaired children participated in International Mother Language Day today by using their hands to read aloud.
International Mother Language Day is celebrated across the globe every year on 21 February to promote multilingualism and create awareness of the linguistic diversity that goes hand in hand with cultural diversity.
No where is this more apparent than in South Africa which is home to 11 official languages: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, SiSwati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.
Jace Nair, CEO of Blind SA said that visually impaired children are not excluded from the rich linguistic diversity of South Africa.
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“Braille is not a language, it’s a way to read the alphabet. That means that children learn to read and write braille in their home languages,” said Nair.
This year, World Sports Radio teamed up with Blind SA, the SA Braille Authority and Nal’ibali to ensure that blind and partially-sighted learners were able to read aloud in their own languages.
World Sports Radio’s CEO and well known weatherman, Simon Gear said that receiving messages of thanks from visually impaired listeners had opened his eyes to the importance of access to information for the visually impaired.
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“Reading with your fingers is hard and takes a lot of practice. Try feeling those strange dot patterns printed on the surface of various items, like your local ATM. It’s true that modern devices can read articles to you, but if you’re sight impaired and don’t know braille, you can’t read for yourself.”
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