The fourth celebration of National Braille Day took place
on February 21st. The day was officialised by law 126/07 in order to
promote proper initiatives to create awareness and solidarity, to foster
research, conferences, meetings and debates in schools and main mass
media, to focus attention and inform on the importance of Braille in blind
people's lives and for those who are involved in their lives directly or
indirectly, and in order to develop public policies and understanding that
will broaden the possibility of real social inclusion and access to
culture and information for all those who live with vision loss.
For
the occasion, the Istituto Cavazza organized an event to commemorate Louis
Braille's invention as well as to introduce a truly innovative initiative
to which collaborated Alce Nero Mielizia S.p.a. The company specializes in
quality biological products and has its headquarters in Monterenzio. They
contributed with Cavazza's Institute to the production of Braille menus
which were offered to restaurants in the Bologna area who simply requested
it. It certainly is not the first time that Alce Nero Mielizia S.p.A.
participates in a project for blind and visually impaired people. Aside
from being one of the sponsors of the now well-known "dinners in the dark"
the group has, since 2004, pasted tens of millions of Braille stickers on
their own products using special printers (this was the subject of an
article in the December 2007 edition of Vedere Oltre). It also provides
Braille information on the shelves of their business outlets.
It is in
one of these outlets, which opened its doors a few days before on Via
Petroni in Bologna, that the event took place, with a reading of
narratives written by Matteo Bortolotti, one of the scriptwriters of the
series L'Ispettore Coliandro, and which were compiled in Emilia Romagna
Misteriosa, by Castelvecchi Publishing House.
The young author was joined in his reading by Giulia,
Irene and Lorenza, inspired and efficient blind readers with their
skilled, light and fast reading hands on the pages written in Braille
about children caught in their fantasy world, priests fighting against
diabolic entities, combining real and surreal worlds, tradition and
fantasy rigorously made in Emilia-Romagna. The event was opened with a
brief word by Prof. Pier Michele Borra, followed by an introduction on the
importance of the invention of Braille by Mario Barbuto, respectively
president and director of the Istituto Cavazza, and a farewell
acknowledgement was given by Andrea Prantoni, on behalf of the
provincial chapter of the Italian
Blind Union, and by Salvatore Bentivegna, President of the Braille Centre
San Giacomo, a social coop which prints documents in Braille and
large
print.
