Snacks in the Dark

di Fernando Torrente

A sensory experience to discover space, flavours and sounds in the dark.


The Institute for the Blind Francesco Cavazza of Bologna has again this year put together some events relating to a series of initiatives promoted and coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna in collaboration with the Associazione Italiana Rete Cittą Sane.

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The main objective of the Associazione Italiana Rete Cittą Sane is to improve the environment in which we live and to promote the adoption of policies and practices that allow living according to more healthy and wholesome lifestyles.
"The ideal city is a goal difficult to reach, but collaborating with enthusiasm and establishing shared objectives contributes to making things easier and goals more in our reach..."
The events promoted by the Institute, four afternoon snacks in the dark, were carried out within the initiatives aimed at the kids of our city and particularly students in primary schools.
The snacks in the dark constitute an experience for the discovery of flavours through taste and smell and the birth of new

knowledge simply through voices. The sensory experience, which lasted 45 to 50 minutes, has allowed children to discover how space, flavours and sounds can be experienced without light and how the other senses react (sight is not the only sense involved here, but the whole body and all its sensations). The objective of this type of experience is to have kids discover how reality can be perceived when one sense is missing and how the other senses can compensate.
During that period, simple games involving touch and hearing perceptions are organized and a story is told in order to stimulate the children's imagination and create positive influences even in the absence of light.
It was really nice to see the children, a little intimidated at first, really let go, feeling more and more at ease hand in hand, and how well they participated with such enthusiasm to the various games that were proposed to them, highlighting their great capacity to adapt and their inquisitiveness for new things. It was also really interesting to see how worries and fears that often relate to darkness were overcome because it was not presented as something hostile, where the unexpected is always perceived as a threat, it was instead filled with themselves, their friends, their games and their being together and having a good time.

On that occasion, a blind student read a fable. Of course, reading in Braille she was able to read her story without any light. Children were very intrigued and were wondering how it was possible to read in the dark, at the end most of them wanted to see the text written in Braille and asked if they could learn to read and write this way. One of them said that he would love to learn Braille so that he could read "Even if mom says to turn off the light".
These activities are really appreciated by children whose reactions are always surprising; they show a true openness towards new things.
In conclusion, it is important to stress that what we offer children are sensory experiences for play allowing them to discover the potential of their own senses and that it is not a question of experiencing how a blind person perceives and discovers the world. We think it is important to point this out; it is not a matter of a sighted person experiencing what it is to be blind, it is also and above all so that the kids don't develop any wrong ideas about blindness, about the limits it imposes, and consequently on the ability and possibility of eventually having a friend who is blind.

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